FriendFeed update. Paul Buchheit wrote me and said he's been very sick the past few days. That might explain why he hasn't engaged the way we want. He also offered to do an interview with me to discuss the future of FriendFeed and what they are doing at Facebook soon. We're working that out, hopefully soon (but might not be until November sometime)
Bruce: FriendFeed=Facebook. So, I'm interested in what he's doing and I'm a big fan of Facebook's. Twitter needs some competition. The Fail Whale is getting to me.
- Robert Scoble
I know it's a stretch but can we gather specific questions for Paul to answer?
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
When other sites like twitter come out with new features, you want to be at the front of the excited crowd. FriendFeed will make you into that curmudgeon who's always saying, "So what? They did that two years ago at FriendFeed."
- Bruce Lewis
Cjay: I've been working on this interview since before Facebook bought FriendFeed. :-)
- Robert Scoble
manielse: well, the interview isn't on 100% yet and now that I've talked about it in public who knows what will happen? But if it does happen of course we'll get you involved.
- Robert Scoble
Cjay: I might be a rusty wheel, but remember two things: 1. I put many many thousands of hours into FriendFeed before the sale, bringing my audience over here at great risk to my personal brand. Lots of "experts" like Mike Arrington told me I was wrong to do that. 2. I'm still here.
- Robert Scoble
Cjay: actually it's not. It just looks risky.
- Robert Scoble
To those giving Scoble crap for being on FF, aren't you tired of that? You all have been doing that for at least a year. Enough. For us on FF, we'd love to see an interview, thanks.
- Eric - Too Hot
Chicken soup - but stay away from those soul books ;) Hope you're up to speed soon, Paul.
- Micah
Looking at the time-scale, doesn't that actually answer the question? You don;t wait THAT long to deliver good news or to debunk a false rumour that killings your platform (well, Zucks platform).
- Jim Connolly
Paul - sorry to hear that! (it's 2:30 am here, I can empathize with your sleep problem)
- Susan Beebe
from BuddyFeed
Eric, sorry if it sounded like I was giving him crap. That wasn't my intention. I think Scobleizer has a serious career decision to make: http://ourdoings.com/ourdoin...
- Bruce Lewis
I just went back to it today after a couple weeks hiatus.
- Bryan R. Adams
I just wish they had a web service or something that worked with Safari
- Jesse Stay
Coach: I've been using it for a while. Not late at all. It's just that this new version finally nailed it for me and got me excited. Why? It shows friends. That's the main thing I liked about Google Reader.
- Robert Scoble
Thank you Robert @Jesse a few people have been able to get an experimental feedly for safari running (see http://blog.feedly.com/2009... ) Andre: I expect us to push out a Chrome version out in October.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I've said it before and I'll say it again; Google should buy feedly! It's my favorite app by far.
- Michael Fidler
@Michael: We would actually prefer to see Google Reader become a platform like twitter and feedly be one of the clients built in that ecosystem. For RSS to go mainstream, you are going to need a lot of different niche experiences to emerge.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Happy to hear feedly works for you, does Firefox? It runs_slowly_for_me...
- David Libby
The thing is utterly incomprehensible.
- Dominic Jones
Yeah. Feedly has been my homepage for a few months. Love it to death.
- Quasar
Feedly is fantastic. Not sure why more people aren't using it. I'd love to hear what the guys on TWIG think of it in particular.
- invariant
I just installed feedly last night and have just started using it. I'm looking forward to putting it through it's paces tonight. Looks very slick.
- Aaron Schaub
from iPod
Feedly is one of my fave apps. Hardly look at google reader since I started using Feedly and so easy to cross post too!
- Ange Recchia/angesbiz
Edwin: definitely looking forward to it.
- motownmutt
I am going to have to give this thing a try.
- Vadim Lavrusik
Feedly for Chrome, please? Pretty please?
- Craig Eddy
yay I can't wait to see it in Oct for Chrome!
- metalerik
@Keith. Yes. There was an encoding regression in a patch we pushed out this afternoon. This problem has been fixed in 2.x.014 and everything should be working correctly next time you restart firefox. Sorry for the inconvenience.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I was using Feedly a while ago and went back to Google Reader. It was just too painful to keep up with all my feeds.
- Jody Fanning
from twhirl
@feedly has completely taken over my use of google reader...
- Andy Bryant
Love, feedly, looking forward to trying the Safari version
- Kim Landwehr
from BuddyFeed
yeah feedly is great, but try the greasemonkey plugins for reader. i like enhanced black. when its late and dark and i just want to scan the internets its perfect on the eyes
- Robert Higgins
Feedly is severely broken for me. I can't get it to show all on the latest tab. The drop down that works on other tabs does nothing there.
- Otto
Sorry if this question is a rookie mistake, but pros/cons GoogleReader vs Feedly? THANKS.
- Jimmy Watson
After 6 months of complete silence, an Apple employee posted a couple of messages yesterday to the ZFS mailing list on macosforge.org. This is good news since it means that a Mac OS X implementation isn't quite dead yet.
Uh, Paul? Exchange on SNow Leopard supports Auto Discovery. All I needed was email address and password, and Mail, iCal, and Address Book had everything they needed. I understand the article, but some of it is just nitpicky, and that is coming from someone who has been using both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard for a few months now.
- Andru Edwards
Wait, you compare Grandcentral (and to a lesser extent, OpenCL) in Snow Leopard to "multicore features Window's had for years?" Both Leopard and Windows had coarse grained multi-threading in many of their applications (just open up Activity Monitor and look at the thread counts (my Finder says 11 threads right now on Leopard). This is not what's going on with Grandcentral in Snow Leopard.
- Ray Cromwell
I love that Bret, Paul, and Kevin checked in. They probably are looking at their screens and asking "what do we do now?" how about ship some new features before Facebook overlords take you off to do bigger things?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I feel sorry for all you addicts. My use of it is purely social.
- Bruce Lewis
I do like FF and use it almost every day. Wouldn't it be great if FB either left it alone so we can continue to use it as "professionals," or somehow incorporate it into a more "mature" version of FB that didn't have all the annoying, time-wasting apps, games, etc. I'd much prefer a totally customizable FF "wall."
- Cathryn Hrudicka
I think FFundercats HO!!!!! would have worked but I'm here anyways.
- Jimminy
here. anecdote: a friend of mine just signed up for FF this evening. apparently the FriendFeed hype of the last 24 hours pushed him over the top. leaves me wondering whether FF has actually gained users today?it would be a crafty way of marketing the service. I'll wake up tomorrow to discover that there was a problem with the paperwork and the FriendFeed team have had a change of heart.
- JSLeFanu
from BuddyFeed
Count me in even though I was just starting to get hooked. I guess it's time to find a rehab and get all sobered up until the next relapse with some other new addiction. Isn't life grand?
- Usman Bashir
oh hey, look, the added an "add comment" link to the end of the comment list. Huzzah!
- Brett Kelly
from iPhone
++Jay. I was going to do the same thing yesterday but I didn't want to pay the money.
- David Cook
David -- this was a $9.95 session but you can get them for $7.95 and there are also 25% off coupons if you do online check-in prior to your Delta flight. That's an incentive for folks to use that service and offload kiosk use at the terminals. Very savvy marketing by the folks at GoGo and Delta combined.
- Jay Cuthrell
Yo Scobey! I like Dave Winer's thoughts on user owned tech companies ... been thinking similar things.
- Jason Cronkhite
well, it's 12:12 a.m. and I'm perusing FF from my iPhone via BuddyFeed before turning in. so yeah, I guess I count. "Here!" (raises hand)
- Don Faulkner
from BuddyFeed
I recommend FF to some of my clients, and there are some companies and nonprofits with presences here—not like Twitter, but I'll be curious how that will be affected when FB takes over more. Most have FB fan pages, groups and/or causes, too.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
И так чятег, пока Скобл не поговорит с нами представителями СовиетФрендфидика, все мои записи теперь можно читать в этом тредике. Пользуясь случае передаю Парню Бухайту и его команде большой привет, в связи с тем что [He can has sleep naw].
- ideali
я вчера был в издательстве, с меня сведения об авторе просят. давайте, говорят, напишем, где учился, что генеральный директор. и что известный блоггер.
- милый. мой. дружочек.
а можно получить профессию известного блоггера? какие экзамены сдавать надо? какую специализацию лучше выбрать - микроблоггинг или аудиоподкастинг?
- милый. мой. дружочек.
Один чувак пришол в чятег и говорит я известный блоггер кто тут тру на первый второй рассчитайсь. А ему говорят чувак у тебя сертификат есть что ты известный блоггер? Вот иди Зайке экзамен сдай потом приходи. А Зайка стоит такой с топором и улыбается. Щас думает счастливым его сделаю.
- милый. мой. дружочек.
Я потерял интерес в данный момент. Я буду скрывать, как и любой другой. Это хромой, что вы захватили этот. Пивные правила. Спокойной ночи. :-)
- Matthew Horton
Hi, I'm Bette... I don't know if I'm an addict, but I can't stay away... I keep checking, just to see if something's new... and I cry if I get no responses to a post. Is that addictive behavior? :D
- Bette Cooper
Yup, I have blocked all the impersonators now. You will still see them, but I don't see them and they no longer can comment on any of my items.
- Robert Scoble
@scobleizer As far as I can see you have blocked not only the impersonators (who renamed themselves back the moment they found out you have a problem with this) but most of the folks who chatted there.
- милый. мой. дружочек.
@meatreach yes, see next thread. Scobble becomes anti-Russian.
- Never Impersonate You
Maxatma: well, that's just too bad. I speak English. Sorry. People who don't speak English really don't have any business commenting on one of my items, except in rare cases.
- Robert Scoble
Why you, Robert Scoble, don't block users from Spain or Italy? China or arabic countries? Those users that comments on non-English languages?
- Never Impersonate You
@Robert, in fact they do speak English. But they also do make fun of Friendfeed and everything that's going on there. You can block them or take part in this fun. ;)
- милый. мой. дружочек.
I prefer FF over twitter and facebook, but all my friends are on twitter and/or facebook. Maybe facebook will get it right this time now that it has acquired FF. If they simplify it a bit more without removing functionality. Then I would spend a bit more time on FB. Lets hope all goes well with the merger. If not I'm jumping ship and going over to Google Wave. oh wait, I'm going to go with Google Wave regardless! ;-)
- Captain Jack
Bu arada Russian friends Turkiye'ye selamlar gonderiyor.
- ideali
@scobleizer i can speak english and i beg you to remove bann from all russian friendfeeders, because we are all from it-community, working in internet companies and we came with peace, you asked for feedback from friendfeed addicts — we show you how really it is being frf addicts, we change names, we chat, we making things that are not serious. Why so serious? Unlock people, they are not bots, they just playing the game of real addicts and have fun. Common.
- ideali
shaun: I started this post to demonstrate that a lot of us are still here and aren't likely to leave. At least not quickly. So, life goes on after FriendFeed gets acquired by Facebook. Point proved.
- Robert Scoble
Beyler, bana bir sey anlatin, bu kadar ciddi olmaya ne gerek var? Translation: Guys, why so serious?
- ideali
ideali: have them send email to scobleizer@gmail.com and I'll unblock anyone who says they weren't impersonating me.
- Robert Scoble
Hector: good morning! I need coffee.
- Robert Scoble
@robert yes they (we will) stay here, I think tat the migration process will take time and after reading @Paul Bucheit, I think that what we all are trying to get even if we don't say it explicitly is to preserve a kind of intimacy (beeing a part of the Huge faceBook community) don't mean that FF community will preserve their intimacy, why should a community be a plan one, (let imagine a community as a set of sub-community) that all.
- abdellah
Wow!! So many likes and comments; is it a record Rob?
- Erfun
@scobleizer thank you, for understanding. be cool, guys we just want have fun here a little. Take care.
- ideali
@Robert RE "I have enough noise in my life. I don't need to have more" - isn't it a lot of noise having 26K subscriptions and 46K subscribers on your frf account? I'm kind of surprised - you create a community that large around yourself, yet when you see a new and unusual activity you just block it right away.
- милый. мой. дружочек.
@Robert, patience? Who's talking about patience? It's about curiosity, not patience. When something strange and unusual happens around you, you can either try to stop it or try to see what it can develop into. You choose to stop - and it stopped. Well, not stopped - just moved to some other place. And do you really know what it was and what it was about to bring you?
- милый. мой. дружочек.
I'm here all the way from South Africa! I dig this service and I'm not quite ready to give it up. Regardless of the news about the acquisition, this remains an awesome service.
- Paul Jacobson
I'm new to ff but find more valuable information here than anywhere else!
- Janet Crance
I'm sure this is part of Scoble's plot to poll all the people who really read his posts, and unfollow the rest. So I raise my hand.
- Shivanand Velmurugan
Just a wannabe. Not an addict (yet).
- Carole Hicks
It might also be a way for me to filter down my "following" count (diff (my followers, scoble)) are the only people I really need to follow. Those that scoble follows, I can safely unfollow and use Scoble as my social media filter :)
- Shivanand Velmurugan
Loading this thread on the iPhone uses 1% battery life lol
- Mark
from iPhone
pardon the arrogance but it really sucks this great forum of sharing will turn into a myspace humdrum. Now I have to find another SM where first adopters and well informed techies won't haft to compete with general "noise"
- earl wallace
I just mention the 1500 mark since it was such an iconic query to see... that and the 500 Likes club of FF posts. It's pretty exclusive stuff... but it's also sobering to note that the subject matter required to get to these levels isn't always a uniform mix of cares/concerns.
- Jay Cuthrell
When I heard the FaceBook news, I tried to quit FriendFeed and I couldn't... I'M HOOKED
- The Web's Wendell Wittler
i clicked the "1488 more comments" and my computer nearly exploded. and yes, i am using an amiga 500.
- jack
Now that I have instructions (thanks LouisGray) and figured out my Bookmarklet! I am LOVING the ease of use! addict - not quite...
- Robyn Hawk
Actually, I lied. I am not a die-hard friendfeed fan. I desperately want to be but have just not been able to get into a good "feeding" rhythm. Maybe I need to add some more friends
- Anant Gairola
I don't need to be addict. I'm just here, everyday, absorbing so many geeky info :D There's no place like FF
- Lysender
I'm still with ya, Robert. Whatever FB paid for FF, it wasn't enough!
- Donald C. Lindsay
New here, but learning. Tips for best use?
- Barbara Langham
@bdlangam From my perspective the #1 tip in this category is: Explore and define "best use" for yourself. Despite potential "finishing" impression of some productive consolidations in this collective-collaborative cognition space, the emergent #cognosphere is still WAY too nascent to assert anything other than initial impressions. March to the beat of your own drum; build your own...
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- michael silverton
yeah sorry, late. was at Shambhala Music Festival, I know tardy, sorry...
- sofarsoShawn
I'm getting hooked, still figuring it all out
- Michele McGraw
I think I do. Not enough contacts to make a impression.
- Michael Schlag
Sanki takip ettigim, tanidigim herkes like'lamis. | It's like everyone I follow, know liked this. | Habidi dubidi du.
- Jeaquares
Like'imi verip geri aldim cunku IPHONE'DAN GONDERILMIS!!! | I gave my like but took it back because IT'S SENT FROM IPHONE!!! | Habidi zubidi kubudu ANANIBUDU BU.
- Jeaquares
I'd like to reiterate my call for Facebook to open source the Friendfeed codebase (as AOL did when it bought Netscape). A federated OpenFriendfeed is the best for users - and fits Facebook's move toward an open social platform. I'll pay to run a server. Would you?
I can't imagine that the terms of the acquisition would permit this to happen. Oh, wait... Facebook take FriendFeed open source? Maybe in two or three years after they squeeze every bit of life out of it, ala Google/Jaiku
- Ken Sheppardson
Would that mean there would be dozens of Friendfeeds all trying to get us to come to them?
- Mark
I don't think I'd pay, but I'd love to have it open source
- Jake Anderson
Worked for AOL. We got Mozilla and they got a much improved Netscape.
- Leo Laporte
Leo, I think you have a little too much "hope" on this. Maybe you're just thinking if Facebook was smart, then they'd do that.
- Mark
Facebook is much smarter than you're giving them credit for. I think.
- Leo Laporte
great idea Leo, i'm 'cautiously optimistic' at this point in time about the future of FriendFeed... lets hope for the best people
- Chris Heath
There is no value in that to them. Why open source something that give them a competitive edge.
- binmugahid
I do not agree. It destroyed netscape. let Facebook use the best features of FriendFeed in it. Keep the talent like the four ex-google founders. Open source is not the answer to everything. sometimes Closed Source is better for the users as well. Just keep the innovations coming and it will be fine
- hasanahmad
They've got the Friendfeed team. That's probably what they really wanted. Getting the open source community working on the FF codebase and contributing it back to Facebook is a win for everyone.
- Leo Laporte
On the other hand, I ike to see Laconica (identi.ca) getting more like ff.
- Chanux
Open-sourcing Communicator may have ultimately destroyed Netscape as a brand but without that move, I suspect we'd all still be developing for IE6. Great call, Leo.
- Jared Smith
You're assuming that Facebook bought the company JUST to get the developers, and not because they want to integrate many/most of the features into their service. If they want the features, they don't want a bunch of clones competing with them.
- Joel Bennett
bravestface: That's not FB's fault you let them in. sheesh.
- Gus
when will twitter be back up any 1 know
- daveccorey
There already is an open source clone of twitter - see identi.ca and laconia or whatever it's called
- Doug Holton
True. very True Gus. My own fault. Perhaps I need to setup an Alias account that encompasses what i really want
- bravestface
I already run a Laconica server at http://army.twit.tv - I don't think we need another Twitter clone. We need something more like Friendfeed. Or maybe Wave will be the answer.
- Leo Laporte
hay hay hay, sin duda un tema un tanto escabrozo, pero entre Facebook y Google, esto no lleva a nada bueno.. i'ts a hard theme, no doubt about that, but between facebook and google we are going to hell !!!!!!
- Đoи яамoη
The Wave *protocal* might be a part of the answer... or just giving yourself over to whatever Google wants you to use might work (i.e. Wave, Reader, Gtalk, etc.)... but I don't really see Wave asdirect 1-for-1 FF replacement.
- Ken Sheppardson
They open sourced the Facebook code base (fbopen)... the license is very restrictive, however. FB owns all code modifications. Probably be the same license for FF.
- Kurt
In know people that have replaced their email with Twitter....that just isn't right...we need one locator that many systems can reach
- bravestface
Great idea Leo. Now let's see what they do, if they're listening.
- Kelly Mitchell
Leo - your last comment is why I think Facebook bought Friendfeed: "We need something more like Friendfeed. Or maybe Wave will be the answer." This is going to be a product they will launch in opposition of Google Wave. It will surface Q1 of 2010 and will have some of the same features that Wave has - but be closed sourced to Facebook.
- Jeff Vreeland
I see what you mean. Facebook and Google though don't really open source their web apps
- Doug Holton
Facebook doesn't seem to have a good reputation with those kind of thing. Facebook promised to open their chat/IM system via XMPP. More than a year has passed since they announced this XMPP system it still did not happen. We still have to rely on screen-scraping methods to implement Facebook chat on third-party IM systems (like the 3rd party Facebook chat plugin for pidgin called pidgin-facebook).
- Gideon Guillen
I would love to see friendfeed become opensource. Mostly as a developer I would love to see the code. See how friendfeed works.
- mikemcmullan
An "open FriendFeed" could be Facebook's chance to get something lined up to compete with Google Wave. Without it, Google and Twitter are going to own the real-time communication space.
- Derek Gathright
OS FF would be awesome, but making it a federated service is an entirely different ball of wax. Just ask the Wave guys. They said during the original IO presentation that federation was one of the harder parts (though FF would be easier w/o the real time editing piece, but still).
- Patrick Sullivan
I think a integrated RSS/FB/FF/GW/Twitter client will be an interesting real time inflection point
- Jim Posner
I totally agree Leo. I can't help but think that this deal is going to be a massive success or a massive flop - nothing in the middle! It's simple things like opening the FF source that can help make it a massive success IMHO.
- Chris Cathcart
correction: Http://www.openstreetmap.org
- D Lets
from iPhone
I would just like to see the real-time commenting open-sourced.
- patrick
wow Leo you sure know how to get a topic started
- Joe Geeting
I actually was hoping Twitter would be the one to grab it up. Seems like a natural progression for Twitter to make. I just hope Facebook doesn't bury it and they actually use it. As far as open source it? Could be interesting.
- Michael Bower
In a secure and closed environment it could be a powerful communication/collaboration tool for businesses. Features of a chat, but persistent. Ability to share photos & files...
- Ken Bauer
I would love for this to happen. Federated Friendfeed servers would be quite fun and is the logical step for a great Internet service which aggregates disparate information from all over.
- rob friedman
You know what, Jaiku was open sourced. And nobody uses it anymore. The fact that "it" (FB open sourcing FF) will happen or not is completely irrelevant. Because you will all be hopping on the next early adopter miracle train (read:service) anyway. So stop whining and move on. Federated this, federated that. identi.ca tried that. Again, no users. It's nice to talk the talk. Especially at times like this. You just gotta walk the darn walk afterwards. Which people usually forget to do.
- Vlad Bobleanta
Whoa... you should enhance your calm. Communities are finicky things and sources like Microsoft that are poo-pooing Open Source IMHO is the real problem. Me thinks that a better source of education to dissipate the FUD floating in the global porcelain bowel instead of modern political tactics are are needed to solve real problems.
- Myrddin Emrys
If FriendFeed went open source identi.ca / lamonica would be dealt a serious blow. FriendFeed could become even more powerful if the people could tinker with the code and add many features that remain missing, or strengthen features that currently are weak. It will be interesting to se how FB utilizes their newest acquisition...
- Randy Shapiro
and pictures of that fat kid keep turning up in my stream
- John Hardy
Oh, I am going to like this every time I see it. Maybe I will see it as much as that fat kid that keeps turning in my stream.
- Martha
I don't usually like Nazi humor, but after seeing this in my feed about 6 times I watched it. It's excellent.
- Bruce Lewis
If we can't laugh at the Nazi's, what good are they?
- Paul Puri
Wonder what they are saying in German. It's delightful seeing this crazy man talk about FF, twitter and plurk. That was the funniest. "We still have plurk"
- Myrna
10000% agree, its dreadul and the big boys like Leo and Scoble cant seem to see it!
- Mark
Leo laporte says "This is a big step toward an open Facebook. This has been their goal all along: a distributed Facebook." What a Crock of SHITE
- Mark
yeah... but it is also a smart move, they got the team..
- Rob Sellen :o)
I'm trying to give the FF team the benefit of the doubt...but I'm having a hard time with it as well.
- Ken Kennedy
Born to be sold, we were used to say in the new economy era.
- Federico Bolsoman
They bought the people. We Stick with that. FF guys are Smart/fast and have deep Google knowledge
- Marco Massarotto
from iPhone
Woah. I step away from the computer for a couple hours and this is what happens?
- Travis B. Hartwell
I agree an independent Friendfeed might be preferable for we few brave FF users. But the writing was on the wall. For most users it's Twitter or Facebook or nothing at all. Aligning with Facebook is smart long term thinking if FB is planning to open up as I am convinced they are.
- Leo Laporte
from BuddyFeed
Let's hope that FB doesn't block people from using the 'competeition' while on FF.
- shelter watch
Seems everything's headed for an autumn war Facebook <> Google Wave
- Jordi Soler
hmm, an open, new version of FB that uses all of what makes FF great would be nice.
- Dusty Edenfield
Leo's got the right idea, and independence is a myth
- Steve Gillmor
Well, how could it possibly be a good thing?
- Fleagle
Agree, I'm not a Facebook fan although I try but.. I'd definitely take FF over FB anyday.
- Sharon Dexter
I prefer a FriendFeed folded into Facebook versus a FriendFeed that quietly fades away, which is the direction this was going.
- Mike Doeff
Totally agree - facebook is so tedious and slow. FF is wonderful.
- Zphotogal
We imagine FB with the SEO juice of FF, thus intercepting search traffic...
- Marco Massarotto
from iPhone
I can certainly see the best ideas from FF being folded into FB but not sure what that says about the future of this site and the data it contains
- Keith Harrison
Except for the whole FriendFeed dying slowly in the obscure ghetto of the digirati part. As Mike said, FF in FB is better than no FF at all. FriendFeed users are far better off having it than watching it its gradual anemia grow worse and worse until one day it vanishes.
- Curtis Schweitzer
While this may never happen, consider it a possibility - your entire FB feed now available in FF.
- Tim Akinbo
It is really hard to see how FB will do more than incorporate staff and ideas from FF. FriendFeed's design of being a very open aggregator is very different than FB's walled garden ethic. I also think part of what attracted me to prefer FF over FB is the clean interface, as opposed to FB fire-in-a-bordello presentation style. I hope FB really listens on the UI side and not just on the aggregator side, or works just mines out the staff.
- David Lounsbury
This is a good thing for FF and FB both. This will lead to a more open FB and steal Twitter's thunder.
- Tim
"the writing on the wall?" ... that's just hyperbole, Leo. Paul Buchheit himself said in his interview w/ Scoble that they could have kept the service alive "for years"...there was no financial issue forcing this, like tr.im or something. And while I suppose there are those that believe the most popular site/music/art/people are always the best, I think that's both a shallow way of...
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- Ken Kennedy
It means you'll have to share. wahhhhh
- Andrew Smith
I think it is a bad idea. I don't like to use Facebook except for frivolous reasons. FF has been good for reliable information. I suppose I'll stop using it so much now. We'll see.
- Barbara K. Iverson
I want to see where this is going but definitely my favorite social site just got folded into my least favorite.
- Braden Douglass
It depends entirely on what direction FF would have taken next (and what direction it will take Dave). Think most of us that have been around FF since almost the start (when it was a MUCH smaller place) miss that but this actually might be a good thing.
- Charlie Anzman
Agreed if they lose the FF interface.
- Wei-Yen Tan
If we put all our faith into a single platform or a single solution [Twitter/FB/Goog] then we lose touch with people, processes and where history is taking us. In this case, we’re headed more in the direction of where .tel and Identi.ca are stumbling, consciously or not: towards a non-web-centric, permission-based polycephalous set of systems, where discussions and messaging transpire...
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- A Mitchell
Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff. And Google Reader will get more social features including item recommendations through comparing users likes, and so Google will win this. Good time to sell.
- Charbax
Interesting convo we had there dave, thanks for letting us call in and participate.
- Chris Heath
But the real question is who will take over who? Isn't there a possibility that FriendFeed will takeover Facebook! I hope FB make it work as I like the idea of FF but it doesn't have the critical mass of people talking about what I am interested in!
- Phillip Molly Malone
Very bad I'm sure there will be some changes
- Annika
from Nambu
I agree it's probably bad news for FF users.FF has reliable info. I don't want it to become chatter.
- Leigh Marriner
I'll admit to being a recent convert to FF but it was the best social site I have used yet (and I have used them all). I am sorry to see it lose it's independence. This will not end well for FF groupies. But my reading of the tea leaves is that FF options as a standalone service were not good. I guess this is a sign of a maturing market. Can a Larry Ellison acquisition be far behind?
- Michael Liss
I agree with Dave's original assertion. I'm struggling to imagine the value Facebook could add to FriendFeed, and I can certainly imagine the downsides. Having an aggregator that sits independently on top of the commercial pile, while fleeting as a free service, is a valuable one.
- Allred
I have my suspicions too. But Facebook have been wanting to open up more for some time (e.g., they're eliminating regional networks), and I'm guessing they see FF as the key. I'm betting they'll fuse the two services soon. But let's hope they use FF to improve FB. But there's always a big chance FB will ruin FF. Stay tuned...
- Dennis Jernberg
+1 for A Mitchell's insights. If tr.im and FF have taught us anything, it's that no matter how many open api's there are, a closed platform is still a closed platform, and it can disappear overnight. We need a decentralized yet federated way to do all that FF did (and more). If it's not decentralized, we don't have redundancy. if it's not federated, we lose community an conversation.
- Don Faulkner
from BuddyFeed
another +1, Don and A Mitchell. I just finished a blog post along almost exactly the same lines, Don...decentralization and federation are both key. Good news is, this is historically how things go...nerds only, then mainstream joins, but centralized (think AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy...services and email that couldn't talk to each other). As the systems mature, then value of decentralization becomes apparent. This week could actually be an important milestone in speeding up that process *here's to hoping...*.
- Ken Kennedy
But Facebook buying friendfeed is great news for the 250+ million fb users! (And most ff users have fb :)
- Garin Kilpatrick
It would have been better (slightly) if they were acquired by Twitter. I'm not a Twitter fan, but I think FF would bring more to twitter, it would be a better fit and the users and the interface would have a better chance at "integration"
- Mario Valente
I've read its good for FF, it's bad for FF. It's better than being sold to google, it's better than being sold to twitter. Myriad variations on a theme, which leads me to conclude we haven't got a clue what the future will bring.
- Mark
FB will better integrate FF than Google or others ever would -- one hopes. let's see what happens and go from there. Good news is that it will generate a ton of news for you peeps to report on.
- Gavin Adams
It's simply time for a distributed story for this type of application. You shouldn't need to rely on any providers who can be down or might be bought.
- Christian Scholz
"Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff." And lock you into yet another platform owned by one company.
- Ian Betteridge
@Ian...Wave is a federated, decentralized, (to be) open-sourced solution. It's complicated, but it's at worst an architecture lock-in (ie, it might be hard to move a large corpus of Wave-annotated data out of the Wave infrastructure). Unless Google is pulling a flat-out lying fast one...there won't be any reason why you can't run your "own" instance of Wave and connect to the rest of the Net. So not standard company lock-in.
- Ken Kennedy
Ken, to be honest, I'll believe it when I see companies other than Google taking the code and running an equivalent service. Flat out lying? No, probably not. But "only able to do something useful if you're connected to Google in some way"? Probably.
- Ian Betteridge
@Ian, I hear ya, but I've read enough of the technical specs to lay my money on the other side of that bet.
- Ken Kennedy
Really? I think the old Jaiku community would disagree with you on that. And the people who stored their bookmarks in Google Bookmarks, too.
- Ian Betteridge
Sorry - I meant Google Browser Sync rather than Google Bookmarks. One is dead, the other alive and well(ish). But the point is that Google has a track record of killing or abandoning services when it suits.
- Ian Betteridge
True, Ian. Google's "do no evil" doesn't keep them from killing things that aren't panning out for their world domination strategy. They're marginally more saintly than Facebook.
- Sean Gallagher
Is it because of the Facebook ad approach that Dave W and Scoble are looking to jump ship on FriendFeed?
- Sean Gallagher
Sean: I'm not jumping ship. But I will follow early adopters wherever they go.
- Robert Scoble
Or Google Notebook. Even given that and Jaiku, though, which did do a blow to my faith in Google, I would rather a Google-FriendFeed than a Facebook-FriendFeed. Mostly because I think they'd let it do its own thing rather than assimilate it. They left YouTube pretty well alone. Oh well.
- Jandy
disagree with FF and LI nxt year bottled up inside Facebook this forces Google MS and Apple to get seriously social and start playing rather than just watching. Google-Twitter, Apple-Facebook versus Microsoft-Bing now that's a battle I want to (socially) watch with all you guys. Oh what fun. Can't wait.
- Thomas Power
I'm not sure Facebook or FriendFeed are entities whose well-being I value so highly; users, I care about, and having FriendFeed developper work their magic, their talent and their stand for open standard to benefit 300M people sounds more important to me then having them spend more time tailoring the digerati's private network. I'm far for believing you can't improve FriendFeed, but I'd...
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- Bertil Hatt
@Bertil_Hatt: if there's one thing that FriendFeed isn't it's a private network. Facebook is the one who, on the other hand, operates like a "walled garden" or a private condo.
- Miguel Caetano
Only if you believe the FF has a sustainable business model?
- Gary Walter (gwalter)
Feedly.com is best RSS reader for ease of use and readability without question
- Jonathan Evans
from Friend Deck
thanks for sharing, I use "times" but it's a bit "memory" heavy : ) this one could be next!
- ledretch
I have to create *some* imaginary friends since some people on my Twitter don't have a FF account yet. I keep begging them, though.
- John Fox
I started using feedly again recently. I love the interface.
- Spirit 2.0
Josh: here in friendfeed there's just a lot of noise sometimes. Blogs tend to me more thought out than most of the things people import here, which can include Tweets, short items, upcoming events, etc. Sometimes I just want to see blogs and Feedly brings me that. Also, there are still lots of people who don't use friendfeed (although that number goes down every day, I'm getting 1,000 new followers on friendfeed a week which demonstrates that friendfeed is growing pretty quickly).
- Robert Scoble
Interesting stuff... always curious as to the business model...
- Buzz Bruggeman
Thanks robert! @buzz: more on the business model very soon. Stay tuned.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Awesome find, also going to use it as my start page.
- Chris Lang
Requires FireFox?! No thanks, let me know when there's a Chrome version.
- Martin Johnson
Robert: I thought you were in the FriendFeed can replace Google Reader camp, which made me question the way I was using FF. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one that feels FF isn't the best place for blog aggregation and that blog aggregation is still valuable. Too bad I've switched back to Safari for now.
- Chip Ramsey
I liked Feedly, but FireFox not so much, compared to Safari. Unfortunate that they have to tie it to a browser.
- Oliver Bouchard
Chip: keep in mind I haven't used Google Reader or Feedly in weeks. FriendFeed actually brings me most of the good stuff I see in my Google Reader feed. But if there's a reason you need to use feeds still, Feedly is very nice.
- Robert Scoble
@Jorge. Yes. When you read an article in feedly, it is marked as read in Google Reader. When you share an article in feedly (thumbs up or share with note icon), it will be shared in Google Reader. Finally, when you save an article for later in feedly, it will be starred in Google Reader.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Feedly appears to have grown up since I played with it about a year ago. I may try it again but Firefox has really lost my love as of late compared to Chrome. When Firefox only crashes individual Tabs in separate memory spaces (which is rumored to happen), then I may love my Mozilla tool once again. Seems like I'm not the only one who feels the same.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
manielse: I agree. I love Chrome and wish Feedly worked in it.
- Robert Scoble
@bill: feedly supports most of the keyboard shortcuts of Google Reader (j, k, s, n, p, etc..). Click ? in feedly to get the complete list. @jorge: yes for about 10 minutes, the registration and authentication service had their heads under the water. Should be back to normal now.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I've tried Feedly a couple times but I just can't use the "headlines" interface. I like still plugging through Google Reader for what info I still having coming through that channel.
- Tony
@tony: me to. i like to hammer 'j' untill i see stuff i like. it's nice and single-tasky. feedly makes my brain want to read everything at once
- Chris Bingham
So do I. It's becoming my only start-up page. It's Google Reader for lazy people (I'm one..)
- Martin Añazco
ooh, hammering j also works pretty nice in feedly! i'm sold
- Chris Bingham
might take a little getting used to, but the presentation of your feeds is really nice..
- Robert de Castro
I just gave feedly a try but must say that it doesn't offer many benefits over Google Reader. Some of the things I like include the 'Karma' feature, the ability to aggregate articles related to Twitter's hot topics, and of course the magazine look. However, I find the interface somewhat clumsy in that how articles are marked as read is somewhat confusing. Their preferences page should...
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- Angus Burton
Ah, I love feedly too been using for 6 months .. hey, wait a minute, you still read feeds in your reader?
- Beth Kanter
I agree with Angus. I prefer Google Reader's simplicity.
- Curt Mercadante
I am an experienced user of both Google Reader and Feedly, with subscriptions to over 1,000 feeds, and have discovered that I can cover much more ground more quickly and more easily with Feedly than with Google Reader. But Feedly takes some investment of time and effort to learn -- there is much more to it than meets the eye at first glance. Its full value isn't apparent until you dig into the full feature set.
- Sean McBride
What Bryan at the top said. FireFox? That dog don't hunt on this box. You gotta Make the apps work in any browser, or I (for one) am not likely to play with them. Safari, Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Opera.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I love Feedly. I don't read a lot of RSS feeds, but the ones I do are very diversified, and I think Feedly organizes well. I like the magazine feel to it, and I really like the fact that I can mark a feed read, but save feeds I like to really read or refer to, when I have more time.
- Bonnie Foster
finally, a way to look at RSS feeds that's welcoming...you know, like a normal website :-)
- Julian Seery Gude
One of many Feedly power features: you're subscribed to hundreds of feeds. You want to jump to a particular feed without navigating lists of feeds. Start typing the name of the feed in the Feedly incremental search box, and bingo: there's the feed, ready to click through to. Example: typing "lif" -- three characters -- brings up Lifehacker. Try doing that in Google Reader.
- Sean McBride
Confirmed that Feedly is still not for me. Just rather see an enhanced, smarter GReader with Filters, User Behavior Ranking (not Social Ranking but knows others what this) and Topic groupings (auto hide articles that appear to be duplicates).
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
i'll try it for a few days, i think i like it now, it seems a lo more organized and, most important, it brings discussion and conversation right into the feed reading, and that is a feature i was looking for!
- Ivana
from email
love feedly! It's the Only way I use Google reader :) it's my start page baby HA!
- Aline Ohannessian
I don't even know where to start with the reasons I love Feedly. It's an indispensable part of any good information filtering/data gathering tool set.
- Mike Elliott
I began to use Feedly five days ago, after three years of use of Google Reader, and certainly i will not turn back. Fantastic experience!
- Stalkk.ed
I love Feedly too! I started using it a few months ago based on some recommendations here at FF. It was as much an upgrade to me as going from my 4 year old Treo to the I-phone. HUGE.
- Kelly W.
I will have to give this a try. Thanks for sharing.
- Rocque
I tried it today... and yes, looks really great and beautiful, now I'll do a daily test... yes, thanks for sharing!
- Arne Krueger
I can't get it to mark articles as read without clicking on the X. I usually go through google reader hammering 'j'. I tried that in feedly, and have also tried to 'm' shortcut and neither will mark articles as read. What am I missing?
- Brian Newman
Brian: j, j, j should mark articles as read (titles turning black instead of blue). If you are seeing a different behavior, then it must be a bug. Could you please open an issue on http://www.getsatisfaction.com/feedly with any potential error message being printed in the firefox error console when you click on j? Thanks.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin - Sure thing! Thanks for the quick response.
- Brian Newman
I noticed a lot of Google Chrome fans yesterday in this thread. Not Feedly but a good tool to look at. If you are using 3.0.189.0+ (currently Dev Build), I'd highly recommend you checking out TPGoogleReader (version 0.3) http://tpreal.dcmembers.com/TPGoogl...
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Gratz to you too! =] ... I'm super happy right now! And loved how George, and than you, tweeted it first! (though Maurissa's "oooooooooooooweeeeeee!" kinda gave it away too, hehe).
- Dani Figueiredo
Does this mean we'll see your episode air, you think?
- Gunnyman™
Really nice. That was the one feature I kept Chrome around for. Though the fact that prism apps don't access installed extensions is a problem for me given my use of addblocking and greasemonkey scripts to make certain web apps work/look right.
- Quasar
One problem with creating private groups for Twitter feeds to simulate imaginary friends is the username Friendfeed suggests is the same as the private group name. If I forget to edit it, I'll in effect be squatting on that name. It's a problem if that Twitter user wants to join Friendfeed later.
Which version do you use for Chrome? Curious people want to know.
- Brent - Yes I am
I've got 2.0.176.0 but looks like there is an update waiting to install.
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol, I went back to 1.0.154.59 because of rendering issues. :(
- AJ Batac
I might try that to get Google Reader working on it again, a right pain having to use FFox for GReader atm. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Looks like the friendfeed logo has a grey background now. it didn't yesterday… :( and the little balloons before comments have backgrounds too now…
- Remo
Remo, it looks OK on mine, what's your browser?
- Kol Tregaskes
Any chance we could get an API method to create imaginary friends? Lots of people are asking for automated ways for porting friends over from Twitter or other services....
I don't care about socialthing.com, I want to consume all my messages on Twitter and elsewhere through FF, but Im not manually creating hundreds of imaginary friends
- Brian Stoner
Perhaps an easier way to import Twitter feeds of people not on FF would be good.
- Kol Tregaskes
It would make FF even stickier, if I could do this, Id have very few reasons to visit Twitter
- Brian Stoner
This is something I'd love to get. I started listing what I'd want my ideal twitter client to be like and realized I already had it in FF. Give me an easy way to add my non-FF Twitter followers and I'd never have to leave!
- Neil
yes! more Imaginary Freinds! (and keep the Rooms as they are!)
- Franc, a rememberer
Brian, the socialthing example is exactly what you're looking for.. That's what socialthing does to an extent. If FF incorporated socialthings friend discovery AND ping.fm's posting capabilities it would be just about what you are looking for.
- Bill Rawlinson
I am loving this pic. Probably a little more than I should. I'm sorry, internet, but I'm going to have to steal Nathan Fillion now...
- Hookuh Tinypants
It's him, he joined at dinner last night when I pressured him.
- Felicia
Ahhhh. That's so nice of you @Felicia to pressure your friend into joining Twitter! :o) I'm trying to do the same with my friends!
- Just Kidée: Road Warrior
I want to make some Captain/MC hammer joke. But I'm failing.
- anna sauce
Christian, LOL! Me too. While I agree that FriendFeed has the tools in place, Twitter still has the social graph, and they're holding it in their cold, dead, stiff-with-rigor-mortis hands, which limits the reach of the discussion here, much to my chagrin. It's extremely frustrating to me to have to bridge conversation here and there unsuccessfully, so I find myself migrating between, depending on my mood and ADHD. not especially effective.
- Karoli
Karoli: I totally disagree. But I've said too much. When I was at Kozmix today I laid out why. Twitter just doesn't have what is needed to hit the gold mine. Will they add it? Maybe, but then Twitter will have to copy Facebook which is copying friendfeed.
- Robert Scoble
Christian: even better, if you click the timestamp on that link you'll get a popout window so you can watch just this conversation evolve in real time.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I didn't say Twitter would dominate. Just that their stranglehold on my Twitter Stream limits the reach of the conversation here. It frustrates me to no end that there's such latency between twitter and FF, and that I can't simply get a timeline stream from Twitter here.
- Karoli
Karoli: oh, I agree with that. But there's a gold mine out there and Mark Zuckerberg is VERY close to it. I figure his drill bit is a few yards away from finding it. Twitter is hundreds of yards away and friendfeed is close to a small offshoot of the gold bearing ore, but doesn't have either enough people or the expectation of interaction with business that will let them get there first. Maybe later.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I am. I was referring to a link in the article.
- Christian Burns
Karoli: but you give twitter the power by continuing to post there. Twitter actuall lays your graph wide open, but the tools to mine it are not here yet
- Christian Burns
Robert, yes, I'm slowly wrapping my brain around what Facebook has. It actually took me observing non-geeks using it to begin to understand it. Since most of the world is non-geeky, Facebook has some clear advantages. Twitter is simple. Friendfeed is powerful. Facebook appeals to everyone on one level or another.
- Karoli
Christian, I know I'm giving Twitter power. It's because I actually LIKE the people on Twitter, and trying to have a conversation from here to there is a little like shouting through jail glass. Twitter knows this, I'm sure, which is why they don't care to offer me the ability to pull that stream over here. I can pull it to clients, even to IM. but not here.
- Karoli
Karoli: Facebook has demographics and nine-out-of-10 users. Friendfeed has metadata and real time. Twitter has hype. Facebook is copying friendfeed. Facebook will find the gold first.
- Robert Scoble
Karoli: you can even make a list of friends on facebook that you can call, "the non-moose club" :) and filter that way
- Christian Burns
Twitter has talking heads on radio and TV saying "I am on twitter" and then posting "call me now about such and such topic"
- Christian Burns
Why does 'real-time' dump 6 posts from the same user that are minutes apart and not deliver item by item chronologically from all I subscribe to?
- Gregg Scott
Gregg: because twitter holds onto them and then dumps them out at that same time
- Christian Burns
And how can I block the Twitter @ replies to people I don't follow in FF?
- Gregg Scott
I'd like to be able to pick and choose from amongst all the person's sources of content in the event I only want some of their posts from specific apps. Is that possible?
- Gregg Scott
Appreciate the attention Steve. I take perverse pleasure in being the representative of the bass-ackwards viewpoint.
- Dave Slusher
anybody know the embed code for this convo (realtime view)?
- Steve Gillmor
Gregg, yes, you can hide posts from content, but you'll block it all...not just the @replies from twitter.
- Karoli
I want to embed it at the foot of the post
- Steve Gillmor
Christian, I've got FB lists. I just don't like FB, because too many people cross over my real life/online life conversations there. I know lists do something to limit that, but it's not quite there yet for me.
- Karoli
Karoli, what if I wish to just read someone's Tumblr but not their Flickr, can I do that? Sorry if this is an uber-newbie inquiry. IOW can i pick and choose the apps within someone's feed or do I have to take the whole thing?
- Gregg Scott
Gregg: Yes. You can do it from their profile page, and you can do it from an entry. If you see a twitter from them and you don't want the tweets here, just click "hide". You'll have the option to hide all entries like it from that user.
- Karoli
Karoli: Thanks! It's nice to converse with you again!
- Gregg Scott
Karoli: Its the same for me. Facebook is people I know AFK that don't care about twitter but are updating status and commenting on fun stuff. I like to keep them seperate to a point
- Christian Burns
Gregg, you too! Christian: I came dangerously near to divorce a couple of weeks ago over something I said on Facebook that the other didn't like. it was innocuous and anyone online would have understood it perfectly. The spouse, not so much.
- Karoli
Facebook is only people I've met. Most Twitters I haven't met. I've started another Twitter only for people I've met in my city(Vancouver-for now).
- Gregg Scott
Karoli. I am baffled. I cannot find either a way to Hide or or from entry. Better Google this.
- Gregg Scott
Gregg, i sent you a direct Friendfeed message with directions.
- Karoli
I hope that not just anyone can post a comment with an iframe on techcrunchit.
- Phil Maxwell
So it's a Safari 3 issue. The Hide command doesn't even show. Just so you know that it wasn't a deficiency on my part.
- Gregg Scott
yo, dawg, I herd you like comments, so I put an comment in your blog so you can smile while you blog. hmm I think there was a meme on rocketboom about what's going on right here, embedded comments in Steve Gilmor's comment. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes... now to figure how to embed another comment system into a FriendFeed comment. Disqus?
- rob friedman
I just can't help wondering what needs these developments serve. There are many marvels both nascent and alive at the moment but it is feeling in the dark. The only sure touchstone is uptake but even that is problematical in terms of return times.It seems cloud can be cloudy as well.
- tom murphy
From Jackson Browne we have the concept of Running on Empty but in this case I think you're Running on Intuition. I think you're right and I'm that you're sure you are too, but I can't help but wish you had more than intuition to guide us through this. Half blind or not we're rushing headlong into something and I'm enjoying following along on this wild ride. Keep writing.
- Richard Shulman
"eBay Inc. today announced that it plans to separate Skype from the company, beginning with an initial public offering that is intended to be completed in the first half of 2010. Specific timing of the IPO will be based on market conditions."
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet