Virtual Bird's Eye › Likes

The key point is not about the specific technology (the Blackberry) but about the way he communicates with all these people that keep him informed--some of whom would be outside the White House, even outside the government altogether. - Tommy Williams

probably time to update that...seems draconian - Adam Singer

@Daniel I imagine it's because all his email correspondence can enter the public domain. So it's not the Blackberry that's the issue here, but the use of email overall. At least that's how I read it. - Steve Rubel

@Daniel Boyd - you mean the current Whitehouse runs on Exchange. - Kevin Gamble

The issue is about having to archive every email under the Presidential Records Act more than the security. - ursi

Thank you ursi for being the sole voice of reason and sanity in this thread. - Admiral Anika

There is no issue with a BlackBerry and archiving email under the PRA as a BB is merely an "extension" of Outlook in that the handheld merely reads email within Exchange. I think, as the article somewhat mentioned but failed to go too in-depth about, is like what Steve just mentioned: the potential security issue surrounding POTUS sending email. However, this should be relatively easy to solve using the right mix of PKI and other industry standard information security mechanisms. Govt adoption is the Q. - Scott Jarkoff

If a President says or writes something that is recordable - and technology is irrelevant, it could be a magnetophone and 8-track - it can be subpoenad by Congress. The article explores the tensions between the need for a President to have confidentiality about important matter of the state, and the need to open up new mode of communication fit for the 21st century mindset of the facebook generation. - Bora Zivkovic

so now that Obama is disabled from email, shouldn't the snarky left humiliate him like they did McCain? (being that McCain is disabled from using a computer for all time) - Noah David Simon

@bora - facebook generation isn't this generation at all. it's about the internet. facebook here today gone tomorrow - the internet platform as the amazing invention IT is stays. - Patricia

Bora++ This is the same reason Bush gave up his personal email back in 2000, and why, to many historians regret, the Presidents have stopped keeping personal diaries. The threat of subpoena is so powerful (and Congress so enjoys leaking information) that it's just not practical to keep those records (I once thought of creating an online diary system in Bermuda or something so VIPs could keep diaries outside of legal claims, but never got around to it). - Andrew Leyden

"facebook generation" has nothing to do with the actual Facebook site, or with a particular age - it is a shorthand term for a mindset of openness in communication. - Bora Zivkovic

What is new is that Obama is the first President with that mindset, as opposed to a bubble-boy, smoke-filled back-rooms, secretive types that the previous 43 Presidents were. The laws, customs and trappings of his new job are going to be conflicting with his modern instincts towards openness. - Bora Zivkovic

@Bora +1 - ~C4Chaos

@bora, telecom industry exec here. that's like saying america is about the pie when it's really about the country ;) - Patricia

It's a shame his "modern instincts towards openness" only flow one direction: out to his followers, in a very tightly scripted manner. Any questions or inquiries flowing in will be ignored. - ComicList

@Charles - Well we've seen what happens when he takes an unscripted question from an actual citizen. - Brian Newman

@Charles - why do you think that? From what I could see during the campaign, he listens and responds. He will not always respond the way we like, but he is the President, not us, so he needs to make the tough decisions not the armchair presidents. But he listens, it's not one-way at all. - Bora Zivkovic

@Bora, during this campaign, and past campaigns, when he faces questions he doesn't like, such as the ones about his past and his experiences, he either answers vaguely or untruthfully, or shuts down the questioner. He also has simply eliminated the competition in campaigns. He clearly understands and uses social networking, but not to interact honestly, only to influence and expand his support. - ComicList

Just another pitfall of being in the limelight, and another reason I shall continue to not want to be president. - BCK

@Charles - I will now, just like everyone on the planet, choose to either answer your question vaguely or untruthfully, or shut down the questioner. And I am not even running for office. Which one do you prefer? ;-) - Bora Zivkovic

I think you should shut me down. It's past my bedtime anyways. - ComicList

;-) - Bora Zivkovic

no matter our projections on Obama, the bottom line is that Team Obama is savvy enough to know how to tap the groundswell - http://bit.ly/y11L - ~C4Chaos

@~C4Chaos: excellent link - you should promote it into its own thread. - Bora Zivkovic

I'm so proud that people found a guy who can use email if he is allowed for president. I wanted more then that. I wanted a guy who could lead... and so far he isn't leading... he is wading in all these issues going around. I'm all for the wise say less theory... but there is a fiscal crises and stupid people are still high on the idea of email. he isn't president yet,,, but give us a sign Obama. if you give us leadership now then the market stabilizes because fiscal people are terrified of this dude. - Noah David Simon

But this thread IS ABOUT his use of communication tools. I am sure there are other threads around about his intense efforts to do something about the economic crisis. - Bora Zivkovic

sounds like Biden... I'm so impressed he can talk... now do something! the issue isn't about the media... the issue now is the message. and there is none. Marshall MCluhan is theory. Reality is we are suffering - Noah David Simon

Noah, it's still a month away before he can do anything of substance, but so far, so good. - Tanath

now is the time you talk about ideas...Jan 20th you do them. something is very wrong here http://delicious.com/simonst... ...none of us are on the inside, but Biden was talking about some major stuff happening. it is time to talk to the people and let us know what is going on. Bill Clinton rarely talked about Al Queda. Is this a prediction of the secrecy we should expect from Obama? What is the matter? the election is over and it is irresponsible to not dialog. this is poor leadership. - Noah David Simon

my guess is he is expecting this to blow up in his face and he is laying low. http://digg.com/politic... email won't help his cause if he don't have a birth certificate. this sucks for the people in the US who are facing a political climate where Putin thinks Obama is a pushover. ...but hey email... wow! - Noah David Simon

Obama's team needs a secure TeamWiki! - Bill Seitz

Obama's citizenship - That story has been debunked months ago. Only the Rush-dittohead-mouthbreathers still cling to that silly story. - Bora Zivkovic

it is way better now. - Robert Scoble

The 2.1 firmware is ridiculously fast, that I just laugh at it. I used to have 6+ hour backups and now it's down to under 30 seconds. - Andrew Trinh

I haven't had any need to restore since the update, and that's all we needed. Before that, it was seriously buggy. - Louis Gray

it's amazingly better. - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

I have the 2.1 firmware but now the charger for the car does not work. Other people having this problem? - Julio F ~ @SocialJulio

Duncan, I still have no bars on my iPhone; the screen freezes very often; and the screen goes blank several times a day! Apple: 'I love your shiny gizmos' and don't want the 'Apple to fall' -- so, help us before the apple-cart is upset. - Mala

Nothing too noticable on mine, and the apps still dont update properly. Though, an improvement now is I can delete on iPhone and iTunes will reinstall the app at sync. That is something. - Kenley Neufeld

Mine has crashed once, but other than that has done great. Runs faster than before by a long shot. Especially when loading contacts. - Allen Blair

Has anyone noticed that it's easier to tell which podcasts you started listening to? - Andrew Warner

love the updated podcast hi too! - James Tenniswood

does it have A2DP now? - Indio Apache from twhirl

Did they add Flash? - Michael Fidler from twhirl

Yes it's much better now. Faster. - Svartling

I should upgrade today. Good to hear it's an improvement. - Thomas Hawk

I haven't had a chance to update yet but I have to say I've never had a problem with long backups. It's always been two or three minutes with about 13GB on there. I always thought it just backed up changes since the last backup. - Martin Bryant

Duncan - How's the power consumption? - Jim McCusker

I slept 12 hours last night. Tonight? Less. Heheh. - Robert Scoble

That's not necessarily true of any blogger. I follow Matt Yglesias for his policy expertise, but sometimes his pop culture posts are interesting as well. And while I don't care about sports, some people like his comments on that topic. People are well-rounded (hopefully). - Paul Rodriguez

Even if people follow you because of your tech exp, they get what they pay for. Following you is free, so if start talking politics, then we need to filter it out, not you. - Rob Diana

I enjoy both - don't always agree with either, but absolutely helps make my digilife a richer one - Forrest Cox

I don't mind what you post, Even pics of Milan. - Roberto Bonini

@Rob, good point! - asiriusgeek

I follow you because all the cool kids are doing it. - stretta from twhirl

I follow you because you don't blog about personal stuff anymore...this is the only place to get the straight dope on the Scobleizer - Alex Scoble

Alex: You get the personal stuff anyway: Blog or no blog. - Roberto Bonini

It bugs the crap out of me, too. I like to lash outward, rather than inward. I'm going to start running around with a fork, soon. Folks better watch out. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Better stock up on Sporks - Michael W. May from twhirl

Amen Veronica. - Hal Rottenberg from twhirl

I think a lot of us are having civil discussions. :) - Lindsey is Fierce!

Couldn't agree more! - orionstarr

I'll have to stock up on corks to protect me from Mark. "Not mother?" - Alex Scoble

Lindsey, I'm sure they exist, but I haven't seen them ;) - Veronica

A part of me hates it but a part of me thinks it's good. Shouldn't we be passionate about presidential politics? I'd rather have that than apathy. That said, it wears me out when I get sucked in ... yet it's important damn it! If I can muster another back and forth on SEO or FF3 or anything else ... can't I do the same for a presidential election? *sigh* Time for LOLcats. - AJ Kohn

AJ, perfect idea! Every time I see a stupid comment, I'm giving myself a LOLcat chaser. - Veronica

Liberal use of hide today on FriendFeed. - ha3rvey, not a sweetheart from fftogo

I think that as long as people are civil in their discussions that public discourse is a great thing. And it's good fun, to boot! - Alex Scoble

For you Veronica: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Lindsey is Fierce!

I think it's because I don't like competition... it's why I don't engage in PvP, and why I don't argue about politics! Heh. - Veronica

Passionate debates over politics are central to our democracy. Frankly, I'm sad that it seems so CONTAINED to the Internet. - Kevin Hessel

I really only like to argue about more concrete things. - Lindsey is Fierce!

I agree Veronica, it shouldn't about competition, per se. It should be more about learning and sharing than who's right and who's wrong...then again when someone says something wrong, I'll definitely let them know, in the most civil way possible...most of the time. I think I remember writing a post where I called a certain class of people idiots, but I'm feeling a lot better now. :) - Alex Scoble

Plus, I don't think it's good business for you to piss off half your viewership one way or another for Tekzilla... - Live4Emma (L4S)

Why, so we can go back to the important business of blogging about blogging, twittering about twitter, and iPhoning about iPhone? Hard to imagine a more important thing to "squabble" about than the future of our nation and our world. What bugs me are the children who can't have a civil discussion or restrain themselves from personal attacks. Also agree with Lindsey - there are some very constructive, civil discussions occuring, and I'm glad. - Anthony Citrano

Just wait until we can Digg for our President... - Jason Wong

no matter who wins they are just puppets on strings does it matter? - orionstarr

Sarah Palin is hot! I mean hot. Veronica... I ain't squabbling. I'm salivating - Noah David Simon

Do what I did, hide or close pages of squabbles. Then start to spam people with cyber hugs, lolcats, caramell dansen videos and cute overload pictures. It's working. - Candace

Squabbles are exactly what they are. Hiding is the true power of FriendFeed! - Paul Reynolds

Yeah! Why can't we go back to discussing *important* stuff, like Twitter, Friendfeed itself, or the latest iPhone? I mean, who really cares whether we bomb Iran, or if we get quality healthcare, or what kind of energy policy we have? - Eric P

the problem I have is wading past the uninformed takes too much energy - Hal Rottenberg from twhirl

Yes Paul Reynolds loves to block people. He wants to surround himself with people who think just like him. Never wants to hear opposing views. - Michael Tefft

@Veronica: I hate to make it worse for you but you're gonna have to wait until April or May. It will take a few months after the inaguration for the winners gloat to wear off. - ChiliMac from twhirl

Eric, don't play that card. There's a big difference between having an intelligent conversation and mud-slinging. That's what I'm sick of. - Veronica

Noah, you're right, she is pretty hot. - Veronica

I have to admit I wasted my day fantasizing about being on a desert island with Sarah..., but when the dream was over I wiki-d her and she is exactly the kind of leader our country needs. I would vote for her over Obama or McCain. She is a woman that takes her issues seriously and lives what she preaches. - Noah David Simon

Well McCain's publicity stunt worked on Noah, is anyone else buying into this? Cause we could really use another four more years of Bush. ugh. - Percival

Excellent points. Kevin Fox gives the status bar tip in the comments at this post - http://bit.ly/2bg0Yv . My nit, typing in landscape mode forces the page to scroll around after each keystroke (keytap?) on the iPod Touch. - Mohamed J

Ya know ... I've been thinking about it and you really are a geek :) - Charlie Anzman

How big are your fingers? I never hit hide/like in the way you describe. I also guess I don't search much. Share is goofy and should be eliminated unless we get copy/paste. - Cyndy

Britney Spears - Josh Haley

Oops, thought that was a search box. ;) - Josh Haley

Cyndy - my fingers ain't too big. Probably more my own clumsiness in accidentally tapping links. Search is something I do. In fact, that's a killer feature of FriendFeed (kinda like Summize for Twitter). - Hutch Carpenter

Josh - HA! - Hutch Carpenter

Charlie - more like dork. - Hutch Carpenter

I run into the same stuff. I've given up thinking anything will have great usability. And why the hell is myspace on the iphone SO awesome with UI? - Eric Rice

yes - Robert Scoble

Wow, aligning myself in agreement I'd say, and super quick on the interactive retort! :-) - Eric Berlin

Friendfeed has been a lot less responsive for me when I really want an answer. Could it be my lack of traction yet? - Todd Jordan

agreed. I do my quick broadcast via twitterbar will gazing thru my RSS link farm. This streams down into FF,. so covering both base. But I find better interactions here ! - Peter Dawson

Same here. I also tend to put sillier stuff on Twitter, sometimes.. :) - ha3rvey, not a sweetheart

You put in words exactly what I've been thinking all day. Despite Twitter's "@" feature, the likes and comments in FriendFeed just make it inherently easier to interact with. - Mohit

everything is a medium - what's a large or a small? - Allen Stern

Todd, you got about 20 comments here: http://friendfeed.com/e... . Do you get more via Twitter? - Louis Gray

I agree... - John Staton

Todd, that may be it. Fact that it's been around 60 seconds since I posted and already have 5 likes and 4 comments from people other than me in part proves out the power / popularity of this platform. - Eric Berlin

Peter, you bring up a great point. When I'm in the mood to "live tweet" or do a quick series of successive thoughts, Twitter feels like a good place to do that. There's nothing really stopping me from doing same thing on FF I suppose -- it's more a habit/cultural thing at this point. - Eric Berlin

It's easier for me to follow a conversation in FF, so it holds my attention better (and I'd venture others interact more for the same reason). - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Yep. The most popular threads of past day has become a regular stop for me as well... has kind of replaced in large part browsing of front page of places like reddit, come to think of it. - Eric Berlin

Eric, I also take multiple feeds and dump them into my FF pvt rooms. Then I just reshare links that I want to open a convo on or think has value to this community. However, when I do this, I miss out on a communication to my twitter followers. - Peter Dawson

I am with you bro...I use Twhirl so its 50/50 to post or read both. FF has more to offer. - Photo Larry from twhirl

Interesting use of rooms Peter. They're one of the few areas of FF that I don't use a whole lot. - Eric Berlin

Louis: totally missed that and wow. FF is definitely looking better today. Ha. - Todd Jordan

Eric. the internet comes to me, I don't go to surfing or using any other tool right now. FF is my main aggregator. In fact, in one of my pvt rooms. I added all the RSS feeds on Network /service status. So that give me the health of the Cloud ::)- heres an e.g http://friendfeed.com/e... - Peter Dawson

I've been saying for a while that FF has potential to be the one content aggregator (or smart people network) that Rules Them All... that's another great example of it ! - Eric Berlin

Exactly - Michael Hocter

totally ;) http://weblog.glemak.com/nomadic... - mike "glemak" dunn

agreed - Roger @ CineVegas

@Todd, you need to engage . thats the key to being in this space. e.g. If you take a look at Mona's response on twitter it really shallow compared to FF comments and interaction here. I firmly believe that Twitter is a 1-1 convo, where as FF is 1-n convo. The the circel of discovery is every increasing in FF, but w/twitter its echo of thoughts within a closed circle. ( I only see the twit's of them I follow) - Peter Dawson

@Mike you nail it well-VERY WELL :)- "twitter is like the conversation that occurs between two people passing each other in opposite directions on the up and down escalators - its brief, short and cryptic - while friendfeed is like the conversation that occurs while folks are traveling in the same direction on the escalator" - Peter Dawson

I completely agree. - Robert Couture

@Peter - good advice, now how best to make use of and go about engaging on FF. Obviously commenting more, following more, but I think I'm missing some key elements. - Todd Jordan

@Mike love that quote @Peter pulled out. Often seen folks get angry over misunderstood Twitter conversation. - Todd Jordan

I can still sort of see Twitter in my rearview. - Pete Delucchi

@Pete, "objects look closer then they really are " wrt to rearview (mirror) ! :)- - Peter Dawson

I like the conversations I get involved in on FriendFeed. Also FF allows you to reach out to more people, even those that aren't necessarily on your "friend" list. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

yep - Jay

Totally! - kamla bhatt

yes - Mark Dykeman

"We have had an abort and are looking at data." - Percival

Almost - Loren Heiny

T-5 minutes and counting - Percival

Did it just dun blowed up? I hope not. - Dean Clark

"We have heard from launch control that there has been an anomaly. More details will be posted to the website as available." - Percival

The last frame before the transmission cut out: http://img56.imageshack.us/img56... - James Mowery from twhirl

delayed again, but still webcasting... - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

Fail Whale! - Sean Alexander

'We have had an abort and are looking at data. The vehicle and the pad system are fine. Please stay tuned, liftoff could still occur tonight.' enough already. I'm going to Taco Bell. - Josh Haley

I didn't hear, what was the flash before abort? It was about six seconds or so after T0. - Loren Heiny

I think their xmpp hose just went down...I am so funny...ahem... - Kamath (नमः)

well, they've got about 45 min left in their window to figure it out - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

Another try at a 10 minute countdown - Loren Heiny

"and the pump is chilling" T -8:45 - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

here we go again... 8 minutes to possible launch. http://www.spacex.com/webcast... - Tim Cooper

T minus 5 minutes and counting. - Karim

There are five exits on this space craft: two at the nose, two at the second stage and one at the rear. [motions to rear of spacecraft] - Karim

"Atomic batteries to power." "Turbines to speed." - Karim

"Godspeed, John Glenn." - Karim

Give me a Go/No Go for launch. - Tim Cooper

Cool hearing the excited crowd in Hawthorne in the background - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

We have liftoff. - Karim

max q - Karim

noooooooo lost the feeeeed!!! - Karim

"obviously some kind of malfunction" - Karim

credits roll. whiskey tango foxtrot, houston - Karim

anomaly in space...not a good thing. Quicktime crashed the Falcon 1. - Tim Cooper

No Flash support on the iPhone means no awesome Godfather excerpts :-( - Mark Trapp

Works for me. Thomas, the reason it doesn't work on the iPhone is that the player is Flash, and of course, Flash doesn't work on the iPhone. - Josh Bancroft

Awesome Dave and great pick too! ;-) - Da-Chief

audio is very cool.. would be nice to be able to listen to favorited songs - Travis Parsons

The podcast connect betw NewsJunk and FriendFeed is complete, just published the Gnip interview through the API and it came through as an audio enclosure. Here's a screen shot. http://images.scripting.com/archive... - Dave Winer

Ah, I see it now on the web. Good point about it not working on the iPhone due to flash. - Thomas Hawk

I believe in America. Perfect first words for first audio post. - David Newman

Works! - Brian

hm. FF + audio = friendcast? - Frank Jurden

Worked for me in Safari, didn't with Firefox 3 on the mac (the graphic just disappeared) - Paul Haahr

Nothing of an mp3 visible on my iPod Touch - Robert van Bregt

Works fine with Firefox 3 on a PC with WinXP SP3. - Jeff P. Henderson

I'm on Firefox3 on a Mac, and it's working here. Very cool. - Phil Crissman

Nice one Dave. Working on my Mac in both Safari 3.1.1 and Firefox 3. - Larry Kless

Working here, FF3. - Antony Jepson

throw away apple stuff - it works perfect on latest (Diablo) release of OS2008 on Nokia tablets N800 & N810 - A.T.

Works fine on Safari on OS X Leopard - Paul Denlinger

Workin' good on Firefox3 on Vista - James O'Malley

Dave, you are the best! This is terrific on XP Pro in IE7, nice UI, good navigation. I'm sure we'll all have Mike Arrington's voice chatting with us soon <vbg>. - Bill Claxton

Works in Firefox 2.0.0.14 in Ubuntu 7.10. This is pretty neat - Andy Breeding

Awesome! - americanm

Working good on Safari here. If this player can be included in the AIR clients like twhirl, I'd be all set! - Dave Senior

friendfeed should provide a link to the mp3 file then. That would work on the iPhone. - Josue Salazar

Working great for me. Safari on OSX 10.4.11 - Tsega Dinka

I'm having issues with flash player 9.x on FF 3.01 - Ricardo Rabago

It works in IE 7.0 with flash player 9.x - Ricardo Rabago

Funny we haven't seen more podcasts showing up in FF as a result of this feature. Should I start a podcast feed just for FF? - Dave Winer

Since you mentioned it I'll put a quick plug in. CS Techcast is pumped into Friendfeed via our RSS. Check it out. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Love the clip :) (FireFox 3 - works perfectly) - George Smith

Dave, check this room out: http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Kevin C. Tofel

Buffering forever, even after the load indicator is all the way across, but I've been having Flash problems since Firefox 2.x (now using 3.0 on XP)--never have been able to properly diagnose. :( - Steve Lowe

No issues with playback here. Wish it did a countdown of remaining length, though. - Tim Cooper

Closed and restarted: now it works--didn't change any other settings. Happens like that all the time. Weird. - Steve Lowe

Works fine for me on Firefox 3 + Flash 9 on WinXP. Bada-bing! - LouCypher

Once I click play, there seems to be no way to stop or pause the audio (other than turn the volume down)..otherwise it works great - Peter Cattell

before i hit play, there are two funny looking small play buttons above the blue play button.. FF3/WinXP - mike

Linking may be less important but as I've said elsewhere the alternatives do not always provide quality traffic to go with the quantity. - Colin Walker from fftogo

'Like' * 3!!! You said what we've all wanted to say, Louis - thanks for this great post. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Interesting... and I wonder what this is going to do to Google's rankjuice flow model... if linking to others as part of a mutual info/attention ecomony starts to decline in importance and value. - Tom Beardshaw

There's now a pretty good dialog in the Disqus comments on Louis' blog as well. Good reading - Charlie Anzman

@louisgray this is totally wrong. Linking is one of the most powerful signals you can send to Google about your importance and authority in your topical area. I will leave a bigger comment on your post but basically just read @DannySullivan comment carefully because he said it well. And he should know. Especially brand new bloggers NEED high quality links to even be found in Google. What % of your traffic is through Google? 60%? 75%? Enuf said. - Elliott Ng

@gregorylent maybe... searching people and what they've found here vs searching pages and their content on google? I find FF more useful for finding the latest content. Google still rules as an archive though. - Tom Beardshaw

@Elliott - I think the point of the post was that Louis is getting traffic from FF, google etc rather than from blogs linking to his posts. - John Duff

I guess this could be seen as a Tipping Point for your blog, Louis. When you started out you relied on other people linking to you but now you generated enough content, authority and page rank that the referral traffic from blogs is minimal compared to what you get from Google searches. - John Duff

John, that could be one way of looking at it. Also, year over year, a link from Scoble is about the same. I didn't get linked to from the big guys, aside from him, in 2007. I would get about 200 visits from his stories last year, and the FriendFeed one drove about 350 this year, with other mentions being in the 70 range. Also, this post wasn't supposed to be about me, per se, but about how the biggest blogs drove such a small amount of traffic, relative to social media, in general. - Louis Gray

It would be interesting to take a look at a relatively new blogger who is active in social media to see what kind of numbers they are getting. - John Duff

I agree with John above. I went through this with my niche blog. Now, my biggest worry is to keep advancing my game so I stay on the other side of the tipping point. Social Media is a part of that game, adding other services, networks, etc are an important part as well. But they're just tools. - John Frost

I'm inclined to think that there is something much bigger going on here. - Kevin Gamble

I think there is a point at which what Louis says is true, but it's after his blog "arrived" in a sense. After all, a link from Mashable that only give him 77 readers isn't much when he's getting 3,000 visitors from Google that same day. But it's a ton when no one knows who he is (including Google). I agree with John above about the "Tipping Point." - Bob Caswell

Great piece describing the changing landscape for how blogs are discovered and read. Interesting that the #1 and #3 blogs that drove your referrals were posts that themselves were powered by Techmeme and Digg. You indirectly got the benefit through those services. - Hutch Carpenter

i think i have to agree here. i used to find all kinds of new sites through post links but rarely click out of google reader unless i want to comment these days. ff and twitter drive me to more new sites now. - Steve Long

This applies to those people in the thick of the blogosphere and social media, NOT to the rest of the people on the Web who don't know what all this newfangled Web 2.0 stuff is. And quite frankly, that's a good 99% of the people getting online. - Wendy

Scoble made a funny. - Brian Ries

Oh, and hilariously enough this post is now "linked to" on Techmeme: http://tinyurl.com/57kfzy - Brian Ries

Now that is ironic! ha! - Susan Beebe

I believe I agree with the change of discovery of content, but in the end it's still a link whether it's from a blog or from an aggregator such as FriendFeed - I still click on a link. We are simply adding multiple layers (shared thru Google Reader -> FriendFeed -> actual content). - simonpure

There's no irony of it being on Techmeme. I said that's where many people find their news... so it shows the system works. - Louis Gray

Links are still *extremely* important. Your 'Google/Organic' results wouldn't have happened unless you'd established yourself as a hub and authority in your 'neighborhood'. The only way Google understands this is by looking at links: quality and quantity. In addition, you don't get full credit for links right away. It takes time for Google to fully weight the links you have, thus avoiding ephemeral link gaming strategies. - AJ Kohn

Louis, great article on the sliding landscape of traffic aggregration, but I didn't see you make mention of the quality of your visits - only volume. SU for instance offers some great volume, but I'm not seeing a lot of stickiness from that source. However, I do see the smaller referers seem to build longer lasting communities - and yes FriendFeed has offered some great interaction. - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge from twhirl

defaults - Allen Stern

wow OE, way to sneak in there - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Heck, I'd ask for more followers (I would probably be about 500th or lower), but then Scoble would block me ;) - Vince DeGeorge

I am reported as having 662 but FF tells me I have 952. Seems like a higher than normal margin. If I understand it, those folks are either private or lurkers? - Christopher Sacca

wow I made a list (181) - Steven Hodson

Dan Farber > Kevin Rose. Go Dan! - Sprague D

Nuts that I made this list ... good stuff :) - Nick O'Neill

a nice list of enemies that must be destroyed. :) just kidding "I'm not here to make friends!" - Marshall Kirkpatrick

@Sacca, the author's said that they can only crawl active accounts that have published activity. There are likely _a ton_ of accounts that were created, following you for example, that weren't picked up due to inactivity. Mine was off by 25-30% as well. And if you think about it... even the most popular activities here just graze 100 likes or comments, not 2000, so there are a lot of people who don't participate. - Louis Gray

I'm with Chris, I'm being underreported, private ones? - MG Siegler

I have 63. I thought I would have made the list. - Rob Williams

ahh just saw your comment louis, thx - MG Siegler

This should be fun to explore new users. - Mark Krynsky

Darn, just missed. 5 minutes late, that should be my motto. - Phil G

it's pretty interesting to me, actually, that for being as tiny, tech focused and A-list driven as people say FF is - nobody's got more than 20% of users following them and only 7 people have more than 7% of users following them. That makes me think things are more diverse around here than I thought. No? - Marshall Kirkpatrick

@Marshall The truth is, small blogs have a bigger voice here than any other social service. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

#70, http://friendfeed.com/quixotic, "has not broadcast any events yet"...what's with that? Deleted all the services maybe? - Craig Eddy

damn 100 away from making the list - Fred Grott

a-lists are for suckas. and playboys. ;) - kk+

Quality > Quantity. - Sprague D

@kriskrug then I must be a Sucka Playboy! Dont get how I could've make this list, but its a nice bday surpise anyway. - Schlomo Rabinowitz

Looking at a graph of the top 50 users, the Default Nine effect isn't all that pronounced. The distribution of users looks pretty much like the sort of thing you get when you do any graph of this sort (i.e. a classic long tail) http://kshep.posterous.com/graph-o... - Ken Sheppardson

i'm yearning for the day that the top 5 are non-techies...that will be a great day for Friendfeed! - Pokai

I especiallylike Pokai's comment—I'll be happiest when the top users are diverse people, not just "techies." - Cathryn Hrudicka

Pokai....I don't think that is even possible. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

+1 Like for Ontario Emperor making it in - Hutch Carpenter

The list reports my followers at 255, FF shows me closer to 355, but still cool to be on the list at 209 even if I feel I'm not as active on FF as many, many others, guess I'm still relatively active... - Shannon Clark

Seriously humbled :) - Charlie Anzman

If my stats were reported correctly, I would appear in the top 100 - woo hoo!! - Susan Beebe

If they published a list of the top 75,000, I'd totally make it. ;) - Wes Justice

Alas, I've not hit the top 250... ;-) - Mark Dykeman

this list isn't as useful as a list of top n most interesting people (the people with the most "likes" or top n users with the most comments.) - Alan Le

I like Alan's idea. That would be fun to know. - Yolanda

+1 Alan! - Susan Beebe

better question: why do you all want to know that stuff? would being a most interesting person on friendfeed be a fulfilling feeling? seems like it wouldn't... - Jeremy Toeman

A little more than a week ago, Google Trends made news by introducing the ability to track data on Web sites, but the service's core element helps shed some light on the fact that the interest level in Technorati has been slashed in half in just the last 12 months, that MySpace peaked a year ago, as did Digg. - Mitchell Tsai

...I sold my MSFT stock around 1999 for 100 (some friends sold at 110-120). In 9 years, it hasn't recovered. Good thing I didn't take a full-time job with them in 1998. :-( Nice observations Louis! - Mitchell Tsai

great job loic and the twhirl team!! - Morgan from twhirl

Great: rooms, auto-throttling - Not so great: FF posts take up so much room, less posts are visible at the same time - Can't wait for Seesmic support! - Garrido from twhirl

Loic - First impressions are fantastic - Ed Dale from twhirl

Hey - I like it! Could you add support for opening a new tab when right clicking links? I hate how it overrides my current page! - Zach Landes from twhirl

I really like the new FF features. Can't wait to see Seesmic added to the mix. - Dana Franks from twhirl

Great update - thanks to Marco! - Marco Sascha Sven Hoppe from twhirl

rambn - click on the twhirl icon (top left) then click "Update" tab, then "Check for Update" - Thomas Knoll from twhirl

really liking this update - Josiah Lau from twhirl

where's the Seesmic support you hinted at earlier? - dbcohen from twhirl

i love the look & feel - sam from twhirl

love the ability to scroll through comments - Danish Khan from twhirl

Sweet! - Tom

I'm ready to say that this is the first version of Twhirl with FF that I am willing to use, actually. - Phil G from twhirl

Tony, Seesmic is coming in a few weeks. Morgan thanks, Garrido it is coming, Ed thanks, rambn yes auto update close it you will see, Zachary working on that, Dana me too!, Marco yes Marco rocks, Josiah thanks, Dave it is not in this one, thanks Sam, Danish and Tom - Loic Le Meur from twhirl

so twhirl >> alert thingy?? - Josiah Lau from twhirl

I am a big fan of Twhirl and it keeps getting better - Mark Nassal from twhirl

WOWOWOWOW ... You guys are putting your release schedule on steriods! code monkies!!! I like all the new feature improvements! keep up the good work! - Susan Beebe

This caused me to dump alert thingy even though there are differences. Always liked Twhirl too bad it has picked up some hiccups from Twitter which is already the meme of legend in these parts... - Mark Forman

I'm in! This will def cause me to use friend feed more. - Evan Travers from twhirl

This is a nice feature. Just upgraded to the new version to use this. But your blog is never unblocked by the Great Firewall here. - Jianjun Zhang from twhirl

Comments inline work well, but make it hard to keep a track of whats going on. I guess thats more of a FF issue tho, nested conversations are much more complex than the flat twitterlike comments. - Steve Mactaggart from twhirl

I guess I'm getting used to it - without doubt, it's an improvement, thnx Loic and Marco - Garrido from twhirl

and try the pic share feature, it takes a few seconds to do what really looks like like a short blog post, a pic, a text and a link et voila! - Loic Le Meur

Loic, great update to twhirl, clean interface, more intuitive - Ralph Poole from twhirl

Nice update! Is there any shortcuts for Twhirl?? - Alex Sauceda from twhirl

still trying to get my head around friend feed in twhirl.... - djp from twhirl

Still not like the interface. Still not see the reason why we need a specific app for friendfeed. Some stuff could be sorted via a easy firefox extension e.g. notification. - Benjamin Kohler from twhirl

I'm not sure about this, but my main concern.. why does my FF feed in Twhirl look almost completely different than what I see on the web? Am I the only one seeing this? - felix

Love the new changes - a few issues still with the commenting. It remembers the past comment when I write a new one instead of clearing the box, and it also clears out my comment box every time the feed refreshes. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Nice work! Loving the improvements! - Lon from twhirl

Great new features. Testing it out now. - Corvida

FriendFeed is going to be seeing a lot more activity because of this. Cheers to the Twhirl team! - Mark Frost from twhirl

Test! -------> Cool! - americanm from twhirl

Just tested it.. amazing.. thx for the update - BRIAN RITCHIE from twhirl

Instead of two windows, give me two tabs like gtalk (browser) - Mrinal Desai

Great update. Good work. - Bernd Sailer from twhirl

Really like the updates Loic! - Parth Awasthi

well - i´m still not sure, if I should prefer AlertThingy or Twhirl ;) - Dieter Schwarz from twhirl

hear that twhirl? i want an update to see plurk on twhirl!! - Josiah Lau from twhirl

"ever declining" might be a stretch! but yes, something will replace twitter unless they add some serious functionality. I don't think downtime is the problem - I think its the service itself. It's a first mover disadvantage...they invent the concept and make it popular but someone else comes along and does it better. Will this be plurk? I'm not convinced. - Zach Landes from twhirl

@josiah- personally twhirl needs to work on the long promised seesmic integration (still hardly any word on when that will be available) before they add more services. - BCK

For me the temptation is too strong, I can hear the sites calling me - Joe Dawson

Disruptive technology it's true. You have so encapsulated what I've been feeling lately. The curse of wanting to be on the cutting edge is the fear of missing out on something new. I like your take that it will be there later. Great article. - Henry Burger

Great Cheap Shot - DAVE ID

Good to know for commercial blogs -- I only use it personally for videos and images mostly - Shey, Jamaican of FF

whenever I check statistics of tumblr the number of visits to tumblr.com is equal to the number of visits to funkyboy.tumblr.com. Not much useful... - funkyboy

Tumblr is a mortification story for blogging world! : ) - Erhan Erdogan

I have a tumblr account for personal use. after I heard about tumblr has problems with seo, I like it more - ahmet bulent

Not trying to be contrary, but is it Tumblr that's creating the problem? Maybe partially, but very few free blogging platforms get much engine love right out of the box, and it doesn't look like a lot of effort was made to optimize it. It ranks #3 & 4 for [cara austin], right behind her main site. Google has indexed over 100 pages, many of which are just photos. No unique titles, no descriptions, very little content. Exactly what queries is this site NOT doing well for that it SHOULD do well for? - Erik Dafforn

Interesting idea that it's not Tumblr but the content. I am planning on porting the content over to wordpress, so I'll have a one-to-one experiment to test against. I think that the big issue with Tumblr is that without a lot of customization, it isn't easy to create that SEO-friendly content - like titles, descriptions, tags, categories, etc....all that stuff that gets posts indexed.... more... - Melissa Chang

Search engines are helpful, but because Tumblr allows us to follow other tumblelogs and they appear in our dashboards, there isn't a huge need for one, if you can find new ones on your own. Another reason I don't like WordPress is that, you have to pay a fee to customize your own CSS and use your own domain. Tumblr has all this for free. I don't think SEO's are a big problem compared to this, or maybe WordPress is just trying to get a few bucks? @Erik: I can agree with you, coding does take up our time. - Josh Jenkins

I knew there was a reason why I stayed on Blogger. :) - Ontario Emperor

@Josh @Melissa @Erik See here and let me know what you think: http://x98.us/d0b - David Ambrose

@David: So the page views aren't as low as we though--on some blogs. It depends on your popularity I guess. Though, I still believe tumblr can improve, if not on SEO features. - Josh Jenkins

I did some quick testing and it appears that {PostTitle} does not do anything useful and {Caption} is not permitted between title tags. So basic SEO techniques do not appear to be usable. - Jauder Ho

The URLs are worthless and the lack of post titles makes tumblr a terrible choice if you care about search engine traffic. More here - http://tinyurl.com/5j5g56 - Bjorn Stromberg

@Bjorn @Jauder @Josh Hopefully we can cause a stir and awaken the sleeping Tumblr giant in Manhattan: http://datainsightsideas.com/post... - David Ambrose

@David You may make a good point about Tumblr being able to be customized to make it seo friendly - but the reason that I used Tumblr in the first place (and why most people use it) is b/c it's simple and you don't have to be a developer or get a developer involved to use it. Having to mess around with the code defeats that purpose. - Melissa Chang

@Melissa That's a very big reason why I decided to launch my first blog on Tumblr. It was easy, no-fills posting. "Great," I thought. But I started to notice that Tumblr was living in its own universe: folks went lived in the Dashboard and never really escaped. Post titles and dates were never really correct. It gets frustrating when you spend time to write (and not merely bookmarklet sites) and then it vanishes into thin air. - David Ambrose

David - I would say the same for LiveJournal and, to an extent, Facebook. Nice gardens, but walled nonetheless. - Phil G

@Phil. For sure! Great way to put it. - David Ambrose

You are aware that you can add post titles using {block:PostTitle} {PostTitle} {/block:PostTitle} ? - pratham

I think it's fair to say that T could be more seo-friendly by default with title tags, pulling X chars from the body as a meta desc., etc. But I also think comparing it to WP is unfair, because in many cases (not all), people post far less original content and use it differently. It doesn't seem to have crawling issues. Plenty of WP blogs do fine with URLs like /?p=50 if other things are in place. Those things now exist in WP because the community made them possible via plugins and smart templates. - Erik Dafforn

@ptm see @Erik's response below. It's the idea of having SEO-friendly post titles as default that makes sense to the community. - David Ambrose

Maybe a site like FF, as a third-party site giving some linkage to Tumblr posts, will be what some people need to get some search engine attention. External linkage is a big part of the puzzle that we haven't discussed. If you have a Tumblr blog and 25 active FF friends, that should start to make a difference sooner or later, providing you're writing about things that people are searching for. - Erik Dafforn

@Erik FF is a big push to my site, but a lot comes from Twitter as well as Facebook...which is interesting. - David Ambrose

@David that is very interesting. I'm fascinated to see how the traffic funnel develops. One benefit of FF and Twitter's "open" state is that unlike with Facebook (whose public profile shows "some" of your friends), bots see all your friends and you benefit from activity and making friends. Oddly, I would not have known about Tumblr if not for seeing people's FF feeds... So I think the two (FF and Tumblr) will benefit each other. - Erik Dafforn

@Eric That's right on. I'll post some screenshots from Google Analytics around FF, Twitter and Facebook modules. - David Ambrose

This discussion is disappointing, guys. Tumblelogs (and Tumblr specifically) can index EXTREMELY well, which actually forced us to turn away droves of affiliate spammers after we became their platform of choice last summer. My silly tumblelog at davidslog.com is 1st on Google for "david karp" and 17th for "david" (above David Pogue). There have been some seriously uninformed comparisons... more... - David Karp

@David @Phil The Dashboard (and tumblr.com) accounts for less than 10% of Tumblr traffic. - David Karp

@David I'm not saying that this conversation is "FUD"; rather, quite the opposite. Thanks for stopping by and implementing the features. - David Ambrose

Wow, that's a fast response. I'll be happy about the {PostTitle} summary! - rodmitch

@ptm Yes I am aware of it but as of yesterday it was not producing anything really useful. @David Karp, good to see that you are listening to the conversation. I would suggest 2 things. 1) Make both {PostTitle} and {Caption} available in the title as well as meta description (or make Caption = PostTitle) and 2) enable Title as url so that something like http://foo.com/posts... works. Looking forward to the improvements. - Jauder Ho

Of course the great thing with twitter is that sometimes it is actually down, and other times it's just Twinkle or somesuch being funky. But you just never know... - Fearghas

this is why it's hard to convince people to use it. If you can't even show it! -

If you never actually check to see if Twitter is up or down, it remains in a state of being both up and down at the same time. Call it... Twittinger's Cat. - Akiva Moskovitz

many times it goes down by just being SOOO slow you can't use it - Travis Cooper

So as long as no one looks at Twitter, then it's always working? Well I think I know what we need to do... - Fearghas

*cough*Twit-out tomorrow*cough* - Bwana ☠

Robert, you should have known better! Live and learn. - Mike Doeff

Sort of like Heisenberg meets Berners-Lee -- you can either demo Twitter or use it, but never both at the same time. - Erik Dafforn

so how do I get that tutorial if you have gone down..and why are some things I posted not into friendfeed yet? - Richard Binhammer

lol Akiva and Erik :) - Alejandro

It's a conspiracy to make you look silly! - Leif Hansen from Alert Thingy

I want my money back! Oh wait.. it's free. Never mind. - Rudy Amid from twhirl

maybe Twitter should bunk with FreindFeed... - Bryan Peters from twhirl

Until Twitter meets Viagra, I recommend a Qik video. - jcunwired

The ever dependable Twitter :D - Corvida

It always goes down right when I need it most. I feel so betrayed... - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah from Alert Thingy

i had a car like twitter once...got it free...was never dependable - John Deisher from twhirl

Twitter is teh suck right now. - Trevor Lee

show screenshots , they wont notice … - kosmar

Twitter is back up now.... - S Adler from twhirl

I spoke too soon... Twitter is still down. - S Adler from twhirl

Could everyone please log off twitter for sec? I need to send a message. - Kevin D. White

@Kevin - just use FriendFeed - Rob Diana

Helps to take screenshots of everything you plan to demo, just in case. - Brent Newhall from twhirl

Always have a backup!! I've been bitten too many times relying on live sites. Have that canned demo ready. I recommend Adobe Captivate. Anything you demonstrate with it will *always* work :) - Bwana ☠

Sorry to see this happening to Twitter and to you on-stage. Shows how handling growth is literally job #1 for a successful service after the feature set is built. - Dion Hinchcliffe from twhirl

Time to Punt without a Twitter... - JADonnelly

Starting to think about using FriendFeed instead of Twitter. Engtech's GM scripts would help a lot. http://internetducttape.com/2008... - Scott Koon

I think we just can't depend on twitter anymore - it's not getting better, it seems to be getting worse! - Michelle Murrain from Alert Thingy