Phil Windley - Likes

Jeremy, I'm confused... are you using friendfeed for the community and experience or are you using it to dive traffic to your stuff? - Sean Reiser

206 more comments

@Sean - all of it. my comment is that, if i dont put in a LOT of energy, i dont feel i gain in the community/experience... - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy, why do you think that is? I haven't spent a lot of energy in FF and now I'm wondering if it's worth it - Andre P. Siregar

Jeremy: I went and looked at your page and there just isn't much that is interesting lately from you. Why the entitlement attitude to our attention? - Robert Scoble

I often forget that while I'm following a bunch of folks, not that many are following me. So when I don't get comments or attention, I just do a mental shrug and carry on. The value in FF to me is what I learn from others. While I wish more people would interact with me on topics I introduce, that's what my blogs are for, not what I use FF for. - Jack&Cleo

@Robert who are you to tell me what is "interesting"? oh, and you've "liked" two of my things recently. - Jeremy Toeman

Plus, your items are rarely conversational. Rarely have your personality (that I miss, by the way), rarely have images, rarely are posted from here, and show little engagement with the community. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy, don't let anyone suggest you're not getting attention because of the quality of your contribution. The design was broken when they made the upgrade and the user experience for all but the most committed users has suffered. You are not alone. - Sprague D

Jeremy, just giving you feedback about what gets engagement. Your stuff lately isn't engaging. - Robert Scoble

I love friend feed - I see everything popping up from all my social media and I can be on top of it instantly - there's nothing that I know of that works as well as this to aggregate everything real time. - James Stewart

Jeremy, I haven't even looked at your stuff lately (sorry), but more because I've been busy than anything else. However, you seem to be insisting upon love from strangers. Have you invited real-life friends here? Some of the most active commenters and like'ers on my stuff are those friends of mine that I know in real life, who care about me, who care about what I think, what I'm doing,... more... - Adam Lasnik

Jeremy: put this feed on your screen and compare it to yours: http://friendfeed.com/search... You'll see that there's a HUGE difference between the items you are putting in here and yours. - Robert Scoble

Sprague: what you are noticing is that in the past two weeks many thousands of new people have come in here, and have brought their feeds as well. So the bar to getting attention has gone WAY UP. It's a lot harder to get attention. The feeds are all going faster. What I'm doing now is building new searches to find good content around topics. Also, I'm building private rooms where I'm inviting my friends into have a conversation about something specific. Those are things I can't do anywhere else. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy, the quality of your offerings is fine -- when users complain about user experience it is often because of systemic design changes. Your note implies that FF was once more engaging for you (as it was for me) that changed with the new "real time" design that requires much greater commitment (posting, managing lists, etc.) in order to keep your stuff in front of people. It's not you, it's FriendFeed. - Sprague D

Once again you make sense of it all, Robert. - Chris Heath

I second that I can't believe I didnt get on this earlier - enjoying the banter :) - James Stewart

Sprague: there are WAVES of new users coming here lately due to the easy integration from Twitter that was added a couple of weeks ago. I actually am seeing more engagement on my items. The searches here are letting me get a LOT more value out of friendfeed than before, too. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you're the definition of an outlier and actually proof of what I'm saying. Neither Jeremy nor I use the service the way you do and have seen our experience of it decline since the design change. As far as usage, I would love to see the reach numbers for FriendFeed going forward. I'm betting that a lot of those new people will churn because of the high barrier to engagement caused by the design. - Sprague D

Sprague: Jeremy used to participate here a lot more and used to blog a lot more and used to post things that I cared about. Lately? I am finding him less and less interesting. I expected that, actually, he has a new baby. Watch how my usage here goes way down in September when Scobleizer 3.0 arrives. - Robert Scoble

If you use Friend Feed for keeping you own personal network up dated and following its great I never really log into my twitter anymore I can hanlde everything from Friend Feed and My Cell Phone even from all the way over here in Australia... Its handy... - Chris Henderson

You and Jeremy almost have a point, Sprague, but Twitter? Give me a break. It's noiser and noiser and all of my friends are saying they are getting less and less engagement there. - Robert Scoble

How do you get people away from Facebook & on here though? - Jason Hansen

Jeremy, you make a great point. I like FF but much of my network is on Twitter & using FF as an aggregator, it makes it hard to have conversations here when they all originate from Twitter. However, I do believe we're on the brink of change. - Karen Swim

@Robert we almost have a point -- well that's almost a compliment! ;-) I expect that the FF boys (who are clearly brilliant programmers) will finesse the ui over time. UIs are tough. I agree Twitter is a rough place but... it's *simple*. That counts. They need to find the balance between features and ease of use. - Sprague D

Sprague: I get more engagement on Facebook than I do on Twitter (and that's with a FAR smaller audience because Facebook limits me to 5,000 friends) and Facebook is MUCH more complicated than Twitter. I'm really getting tired of the hype of Twitter being better because it's simpler. Facebook is still growing a Twitter every six weeks. 225 million vs. 30 million for the "simpler" service. - Robert Scoble

Robert no disrespect because you know I value what you do, but we really need to hear from people who may not have as high a profile in order to get a better sense of how everyday users are experiencing the changes to FF. Do you know how Paul and Bret are assessing that (unique users, returning users, time on site, etc.)? For example, I still rely on FF as an aggregator, but spend much less time on site. - Sprague D

Sprague: yes, they are using focus groups (which is why they made several of the changes here) and they are watching time on site and amount of likes per person and comments per person and also are active here in many places. But they haven't shared much more about that. The thing that drags people back here is conversations on specific topics. Some of those can get hundreds or thousands of comments. - Robert Scoble

Sprague, for example, Here's a list of all items that have more than 100 comments here: http://friendfeed.com/search... that list is getting more items faster now than it was three months ago. - Robert Scoble

Sprague: here's a list of all items that have gotten 100 likes or more, too: http://friendfeed.com/search... This list too is growing a lot faster today than it was three months ago. That demonstrates that a lot more people are using the service, but that it's harder to get attention. - Robert Scoble

Just looking at the features I would easily say Friendfeed is the better place to spend my time but I find myself over at twitter more than any other place. - Hunter

Hunter: that's fair. I have been on Twitter 910+ days and I spend a lot of time over there too. One thing I've noticed is that my behavior IS early adopter and IS often two years ahead of the market. I remember having these arguments with my blog's readers. They wanted to stay on the blog comments, not come over to Twitter. Now most of them have joined Twitter and are resisting coming to the new thing. I'm seeing more and more move over though. - Robert Scoble

Johnny: Hodson is one of those people who would rather denigrate someone who is ahead of him in understanding the usage of these tools. I have had the exact same reactions from people who used to tell me that the world didn't need Mouse and Windows. True story. Then later when IM came out people told me no one would EVER have hundreds of people on their IM lists, or use it for business. Today most of my friends have that many. - Robert Scoble

Nicholas, agree totally that FF has it all over Twitter in features. Robert, perhaps much of the issue is just caused by increased traffic but I'm not sure. I need to cut out. This has been good. - Sprague D

Johnny: I remember when I had 1,000 friends on Twitter and my friends were giving me shit for having so many and saying that I couldn't understand the real world. Same argument as Hodson is giving me. Hodson is wrong. He'll always be wrong. He can't stand it because people DO follow us into the deep end of the pool, eventually, because, well, it's more fun there. - Robert Scoble

How to interest Robert Scoble: talk about him, or his ideas, or skewer a sacred cow of his. Then it will turn up in his vanity search. (Oh, let me get "Scobleizer" in there so it'll pique his interest. - TxVoodoo

Steven: you are saying I'm unique. Actually, history has proven I am not. I'm just early. That's all. Not unique. A year from now I wish people would go back and understand this, but they never do. I've been through this before. Which is why when you tell me to piss off you are wrong and a jerk. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: go to http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... -- how many items there follow your advice? Not many. You are wrong and a jerk. Thanks for adding to the conversation. - Robert Scoble

Steven: I've heard that argument before. Many times. The person saying it has ALWAYS been proven wrong. Which is why I'm telling you you're wrong. Humor is fine. Where's the smilie? :-) - Robert Scoble

Johnny: exactly. I could wallpaper my bathroom with all the comments that I got in the early days of Twitter that said "Twitter is lame." All from guys like Hodson. - Robert Scoble

Oops, hit enter too quickly. Seriously, though, ones objectives shouldn't be to engage only 1 reader, even one as vaunted as Scoble. It should be to first express something you feel strongly about, and hopefully engage others who are interested in what you think. But I wouldn't consider Robert's critique as near to valid, because it's a classic example of "YMMV". Different strokes, etc,... more... - TxVoodoo

shit things are heating up in here! dam you can type fast Scoble!! :-) SMILE haha - James Stewart

James: the best class I took in college was typing. :-) - Robert Scoble

Jeremy, you aren't alone in wishing that people would contribute to the conversations you try to start. - MiniMage

TxVoodoo: ad hominems? Hahahahahahah. Boy, you are funny. You're the one who made a false statement. - Robert Scoble

MiniMage: life doesn't guarantee you a listener. - Robert Scoble

Is there really a right or wrong answer here though? - Jason Hansen

I reckon dude - I've been cruzing though my emails and facebook and friendfeed all arvo and watching this convo roll out has been really interesting. loved that vid of you talking about building43 and friendfeed on your fan page - just can't believe I havn't been tracking you earlier - thanks for the insights all the way to NZ :) - James Stewart

Well, um, Jeremy, looks like you got your wish. Lots of replies here! :D - Adam Lasnik

Robert-how about this one? http://friendfeed.com/scobles... - Not all of us feel the need to Big Brother the world about our mentions. And I'm not a jerk because I disagree with you. I've felt this for a while, feels good to speek my mind. Been around as long as you, just haven't felt world revolved around me. - TxVoodoo

Steven: well, I am telling you that there's some lessons you guys aren't getting and you're trying to denigrate those lessons by saying I'm "unique." Sorry, the teacher is ALWAYS unique. I guarantee you that you'll be using the techniques I'm learning in friendfeed a few months from now and you'll be saying that I am right. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: what about my vanity feed? You trying to tell me you don't look to see what people are saying about you? Liar. - Robert Scoble

Oh, Robert - an opinion can't be a false statement. Don't strawman me! And how can you know if I'm lying or not? Don't project. That's libel, sir. - TxVoodoo

Adam: this is the first engaging thing Jeremy has done since his baby was born. I miss his engaging self. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: oh give me a break. That got you one big step closer to a block since you're here just to be a troll, not for a conversation. - Robert Scoble

one thing that does seem kind of limiting is the misinterpretation of text still on here - but it's not like you can do video. Another thing is that the amount of attention this has brought to Jeremy is huge - I wouldn't have come across him except that I saw Scoble talk at the start of this thread and wanted to see what he was on about - haha calling people a jerk is the best insult. - James Stewart

Seriously, this is about social media, which presumes social etiquette, and ad hominems are just cheap. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo block warning #2. Don't tell me what's social etiquette. You follow your own rules, I'll follow mine. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy, your original point is quite valid. To me, FF is the Usenet of the 00s - most use it to flamewar and self-promote. I rarely get value on it. I see an awful lot of bloviating & frankly, circles of backrubbing. - TxVoodoo

Scoble, lemme get this thru your head: 1) this isn't YOUR ff. 2) I don't CARE. You have little to no impact on my existence. 3) If it makes you feel important, do it. I don't begrudge others their entertainment. - TxVoodoo

RScoble: If I listen to others, it'd be nice for them to listen back. - MiniMage

See this is the Key. People who are thinking about ROI aren't in love with what they are doing. No offense. I and about 99% of the population fall into, sadly the same category. The people like Scobleizer, who are loving what they do, are on the edge of excitement all the time. Everyone should find out what it is that makes them tick, and follow that for a career. Not preaching. More writing this for myself. You know how they say, we write in order to learn. - Stephen Pickering

Stephen, yes. I find much of what goes on here to be naval gazing and beating of dead horses. Good lord, stop *talking* about social media, go and BE social with it. - TxVoodoo

Jeremy: you should have had a disclaimer. Your job is to build very close relationships with influencers. People like Ryan Block who used to run Engadget etc. And me, because I have a large audience. You want to have a place where you can study JUST THOSE PEOPLE. You don't care about people like TxVoodoo who has only a few readers and who doesn't even disclose his real name. So, to you, those people add noise and friction to studying the influencers you need to get your products in front of. - Robert Scoble

Robert, HER real name. And it's out there, if you look. And I don't measure my value or validate my existance by number of readers. - TxVoodoo

For heaven's sake, my icon is of my face. - TxVoodoo

Jeremy: you'd rather have a dinner with Gary Shapiro, who runs CES, than talk with "normal people" like TxVoodoo. So, when you see a comment stream like this one it takes too much work. See, you can interact with people like Gary over IM, or on Twitter, where he only has a few followers, and you can lock everyone else out, but here people like TxVoodoo leak into the conversation which... more... - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo Yes, I heartily agree, but for some people, like Scobleizer, Gillmor, Leo, that is their passion and job, and it has great value to the rest of us to report on weigh in on that sector of technology. But I hear what you are saying, and I think Scoble is interested in the same thing, how to apply this very technology to every kind of career and make it more fun and productive - Stephen Pickering

OH MY Robert, you're really making yourself look dreadful. The "normal people" don't count? Who buys your services? Who hires you? Who reads your works? Way to alienate! It might not occur to you that some of us use these services for other things that aren't less valuable. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: I know Jeremy. Do you? He does marketing and influencer management and PR and that kind of thing to launch new companies. - Robert Scoble

Stephen yes - but as I say above, it doesn't pay to alienate ppl w/ less followers/readers/etc. One never knows where a jewel will come from, or a job. Y'all don't know who I am, or who I represent, or what my buying power is, right? - TxVoodoo

Robert, do you know me? Do you know what I might do? Do you know what I might buy? Why auto kneejerk to slit your own (professional) throat, possibly inadvertantly? Social media should have value-but not only in having all the S.M. folks engage one another. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: sorry, but people like Jeremy can't engage with everyone. He is one of the world's best at figuring out who is important. Watch him work a show on behalf of a vendor. I watched him at CES. He is very adept at figuring out who the buyers are, who the press is, who has an audience, who is just there to waste his time, etc. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo Don't beat up on Scobleizer, he's on yours and my side, he's saying we the people who are on the outside of the tech industry, that our voice is important too - Stephen Pickering

TxVoodoo: you aren't a good listener. - Robert Scoble

People like Jeremy can't or won't engage with everyone? - MiniMage

TxVoodoo: I was talking about Jeremy, not you. To Jeremy you are just another shlub. - Robert Scoble

Just another shlub, reporting for duty. - Ken Sheppardson

MiniMage: Jeremy said exactly that above. That he isn't willing to put in the hard work participating because he gets more ROI somewhere else. I've seen how Jeremy works. He works dinners. Private emails. Phone calls. And gets to know INFLUENCERS intimately. He has won CES's best of show several times on behalf of his clients. Hint: he doesn't see a way to get that done here. He should have disclosed that. - Robert Scoble

*sigh* See, Robert. You are missing soooo many points here. These discussions could have value - like the one I'm having w/ Stephen. Stephen's reading my words and their import, not just kneejerking. But influencing happens on MANY levels, in many fora. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: But isn't Robert saying Jeremy doesn't want to bother with the influencing on your level, when he can benefit greater from his normal levels? - MiniMage

Johnny: this is what happens with EVERY onlne community. The noise level goes up as newbies come in. I've seen it happen over and over and over and over. What's fun is that in friendfeed we can start secret societies. I'm shocked that Jeremy hasn't discovered that yet. Because that WOULD let him get high value out of friendfeed, similar to his IM client or his Tweets. - Robert Scoble

MiniMage: that's exactly what I was saying. - Robert Scoble

But TxVoodoo while Scobleizer is one of the "important" people as Kawasaki calls them, he is the only one who engages us like this right now. He really does care about the interconnection of "regular" businesses and organizations with this new Social Media World. - Stephen Pickering

To me, FF isn't organic. Discovery isn't organic on it, it's not a great way to find new info and share it. I don't want nor care to influence Robert. On the other hand, I will say I'm more interested in reading Stephen, now. Maybe not his FF, but other bits. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: I wrote a book called Naked Conversations that SAID EXACTLY THAT. It's clear you haven't done your homework about me, just like I haven't done mine about you. - Robert Scoble

Robert, what do you mean by "secret societies"? - LPH™ and his dog P™

LPH: here in friendfeed you can build rooms that no one can see into except if you are invited. A secret society. - Robert Scoble

Brad, true enough. I like working and thinking outside the box - and that often requires bringint in 'normal' folks, integrating their input. I think a lot of recent tech could be made more valuable by integrating their input at the beginning-too much is now grown from minds of 'important' folks while forgetting what normal ppl need to WORK. - TxVoodoo

Johnny: well, there's more than one way to get rid of TxVoodoo. I almost blocked her, but kept her here to see just what she'd say. What can I say, it's a slow news night and I needed some entertainment. :-) My son has control of the TV. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Rober, Yah, I didn't read your book. Strange that I say what you wrote, but you don't use it? (ok, low blow). I just very much dislike this caste system you seem to perpetrate. I've been important in my field from time to time, and I feel it makes me too insular. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: I'm not talking about you Damn It. You are soooo narcissistic. - Robert Scoble

Please forward me invites to the high-value secret society rooms. kthxbye - Ken Sheppardson

TxVoodoo: I'm talking about Jeremy. THAT IS HIS ATTITUDE!!!! - Robert Scoble

Brad_King - totally agree, it's been interesting to watch this develop over the past couple of hours and something I think I'll use an example for how cool FF is. Love IT - James Stewart

Robert, thank you for the best laugh of the evening - TxVoodoo

Stephen has the right of it. How many of the big players would look at a nobody's blog, follow her on Twitter or respond in email? http://scobleizer.com/2006... - MiniMage

TxVoodoo: you think everything is about you, don't you? Heheh. - Robert Scoble

May I quote Carly Simon to you? - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: that song is in my head thanks to you. :-) - Robert Scoble

You two need to learn to use emoticons, me thinks. There ya go, Robert. - Ken Sheppardson

It's definitely hard to hate on Robert because he'll actually respond :) - Rahsheen?

I've a bit of snark in me, no question. HOWEVER. To the subject - this is a great chance to engage w/ as fandoms call them, the Big Names, so to speak - and maybe puncture their insular bubbles? - TxVoodoo

Johnny: a private room is even better than a block. That way the person you are trying to remove from the discussion doesn't know it happened. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: let me know how it goes trying to get @oprah to engage. - Robert Scoble

FWIW, I don't think FF is best or only way to do it. I believe we should use the tools that work for us, not fit our work to the tools. - TxVoodoo

or Leo Laporte? - MiniMage

TxVoodoo: I dare you to try to have this kind of conversation on your blog or over on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Robert - false comparison - she isn't active on Twitter, she's not a 'real' user. And Robert? I've had convos like this many times on my blog & on twitter. - TxVoodoo

Mini: Leo actually is pretty engaged. - Robert Scoble

He's never said a thing to me - MiniMage

Again-it's NOT the tool-it's what you do w/ it. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: now I know why you don't have many followers on Twitter. (Low blow, but true) - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: if you had a conversation like this over on Twitter (I have) you would have had hundreds of people complaining. - Robert Scoble

And what you do w/ it is influenced by how natural it feels to you. Example: i don't like the "hit enter it posts" thing here. - TxVoodoo

I see what u mean - orionstarr

Nicholas: she would, but Twitter search isn't working right now. - Robert Scoble

Robert-you're engaging the wrong ppl on twitter-I do political talk there, often, and it works. I haven't had anyone complain, perhaps because I've followed/am followed by like-minded people - TxVoodoo

I don't think it ever fails. If someone posts that no one is paying attention to what she/he is saying, a conversation explodes. Maybe I should try it ;) - MiniMage

TxVoodoo: You mean close-minded people. - Jason Hansen

Nicolas because I haven't really ever cared enough? - TxVoodoo

But TxVoodoo what I gather about Robert from following him is that he is the opposite of the caste system. He's just the opposite of all those characteristics you hate (and for good reason many times) that's one reason he's very popular - Stephen Pickering

Let me ask fathers, though, if Hooters' wings stop tasting so good when they have daughters, and no one's in the woods to hear my tree fall. - MiniMage

Stephen: I don't *hate*, I bemoan. I am sorry that he choses to keep his circle like that. - TxVoodoo

Also, I think I *will* go to feedback-darned page keeps scrolling the typing box out of view. That's not organic, dammit! - TxVoodoo

Brad_King what kind of Book are you writing? - Stephen Pickering

Am off for evening, adios. - TxVoodoo

TxVoodoo: you should have clicked on the time stamp. - Robert Scoble

TxVoodoo: that would have opened up a window with the comment box on the bottom. - Robert Scoble

Robert++, that's what I did - Rahsheen?

Robert: Thanks for that tip... haha. I always click on Share, etc... - Jason Hansen

I right-clicked and opened in a new window, because I'm cool like that. No, I'm not serious. - MiniMage

Rahsheen: see, that's where Hodson goes wrong. Sometimes it takes an advanced user of a service to figure out all the productivity tips and teach them to other people. - Robert Scoble

Robert, stupid question, what is clicking on the time stamp? I keep having to go to the top of the page too - Stephen Pickering

Stephen: underneath the title at the top of this node is a time stamp. When this item was originally posted. Click on it. - Robert Scoble

Stephen: now, if you click on it again you'll get a second type of window to open. - Robert Scoble

Christopher: I knew there was a reason I was watching you. - Robert Scoble

I'm sort of curious when I see people use the acronym ROI when it comes to "Social Media" tool, how exactly they define "return". For me return is learning stuff, not building traffic and followers. I can see how FriendFeed might be a poor platform on which to build an audience, because yes... you have to actually participate rather than just throw breadcrumbs over the wall now and then. - Ken Sheppardson

So Jeremy Stormbringer starts this and wanders off? - MiniMage

Steven: because you don't like it when I tell people how to use friendfeed to get the most out of it. - Robert Scoble

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I learned something! Thanks Robert! - Stephen Pickering

Me too, thanks ! - Barbara

Brad: cool, I'll try to get to my DM's. Got a bunch of them. - Robert Scoble

26 days? That's IMPRESSIVE! uh, but why the heck did you do it? - MiniMage

MiniMage: These threads often turn into that sort of party where the host wants to go to bed but a bunch of the guests just want to hang out and watch the big screen TV all night. - Ken Sheppardson

Brad_King wow, you are right in the middle of it. And I thought Scoble and Brogan were the Social Media Kings! - Stephen Pickering

Ken: when Jeremy says "ROI" that means that his job is to influence influential people like journalists and bloggers with big audiences. He's finding that more and more those people are disappearing into a sea of other people. It pisses him off. - Robert Scoble

Steven: anytime! Part of it is I assume you're like Arrington and just like to argue to get an audience going. That's cool. It's fun for me too. - Robert Scoble

Good point...but should Jeremy be going to bed just yet? It's only midnight on the East Coast, and don't the movers and the shakers work 3 hours later? - MiniMage

I still haven't seen that movie, Brad. - MiniMage

MiniMage: Jeremy has a new baby. And if his wife let him away from those duties he's probably out having dinner with someone who has more influence than me. :-) - Robert Scoble

Brad_King Yes, I was joking a bit, I've been an enthusiasic Scoble follower for quite a while. But those are some impressive titles you are working on! - Stephen Pickering

Steven: I like your critiques. I usually learn something about myself and usually learn that I'm not communicating clearly or I'm too far ahead of the pack and the pack is getting pissed off. - Robert Scoble

New babies. Ah, yes. Those may or may not have their schedules down just yet. - MiniMage

On the other hand, when the pack gets pissed off for being left behind it usually is a problem with the pack, not with me. I've been through this before many times. - Robert Scoble

Christopher: why did you come to that conclusion? - Robert Scoble

Christopher: that seems to be a mighty lame conclusion to come to. Especially since we can hide specific stuff from specific services. - Robert Scoble

Christopher: yeah, but what if we want to see what kind of music you're listening to, or your videos, or your Tweets, or your blogs? I am doing lots of searches and that's the kind of stuff I want to see from you here. - Robert Scoble

There is always something be learned and nothing to lose. I always try to enjoy my time spent here. - Ashish

Christopher: interesting, because what you import has nothing to do with you. It has to do with what WE see of you. - Robert Scoble

Brad_King Oh sure I understand. Everyone must go with the grain of their personality. Or else they won't be as happy and productive, and it sounds like you are very productive! - Stephen Pickering

Christopher: oh, then I'm missuderstanding. What aren't you bringing in here anymore? - Robert Scoble

Robert: Whenever I want to post something that I listen to or watched, I search FF first and find someone else has already posted it, so I just like/comment, rather than duplicate (most times). It's a rare joy to find that someone else hasn't beaten me to the punch. - MiniMage

Oh Jeremy, what have you done? Tsk. Tsk. - Louis Gray

It aint hurting him any, Louis! - MiniMage

Louis: he did an advanced trolling technique that has been used here several times lately to get engagement. Unfortunately I think it'll only work about three more times before people just ignore anyone who complains they aren't getting enough comments. - Robert Scoble

Brad: I am building things. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert - I work in Permits, and one of the clerks has a great saying about the way some people are. She said, "I can explain things to people, but I can't understand it for them." - Gary Etie

Brad_King well it sounds like you are doing very important work - Stephen Pickering

What is a "troll"? Am I a Scoble troll? - Stephen Pickering

Gary: good quote. Stephen: there's this thing called Google that I would love to introduce you to. :-) To everyone else, now I'm outta here cause I'm done with dinner and this was fun, but there's gotta be something else happening on friendfeed. :-) - Robert Scoble

Brad_King well media is important, especially now! But I agree, there are different levels of "importance" - Stephen Pickering

wow... quite a bit happened over dinner it seems... if there were only THREADED comments, it would be so much easier for me to re-engage with anyone who said anything here. I'll have to do my best individually.... - Jeremy Toeman

Steven, sorry for the delay. The family (myself included) was at a real-lief wedding in Santa Cruz. - Louis Gray

@Robert funny, i both agreed and disagreed with your comments throughout, especially the ones where you talked on my behalf. re "trolling": meh, if that's your feel, whatever - I honestly didn't expect to see a conversation like this one emerge. re "ROI": in this case i really meant engagement with *anyone*, not just influencers... re "interestingness of my content": i think you cross... more... - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy, my twins can take more time than your baby. Let's talk. I can teach you. - Louis Gray

@Louis - i also have a 2 year old and run 2 companies... - Jeremy Toeman

and now i'm off to clean radishes from my garden (uninteresting, i know), then go watch a movie with the wife. real-time web, please have a good night, i look forward to seeing you again soon. oh, and i still stand by my original statement. :) - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy: when you say stuff like this you gotta know that those of us who still are on the service will take it personally and spend a lot of time engaging on your item whether out of spite, fear, guilt, or just plain old "we feel like you just threw a pie in our face" reaction and we want to throw it back. That's why what you did was trolling. You should have known the reaction you'd... more... - Robert Scoble

I wasn't going to chime in on this thread because frankly, I'm pretty new to FF and was enjoying the discussion. But Scoble is right on with his last comment. Jeremy, the fact that you posted this on FF and not on Twitter or your blog, at least to me, shows you to be a tiny bit disingenuous. It's like showing up to someone's party and and instead of politely excusing yourself and leaving quietly, you take the stage and announce that this party sucks. You're bound to get a reaction. - James Poling

Was it just me, or did Jeremy not actually address anyone but Robert and Louis? Then again, perhaps the salient points came from them? Still, I find it interesting that someone who runs two companies and rubs shoulders with tech elite has radishes in his garden and cleans them, himself. It's not riveting, but something I can't overlook. - MiniMage

MiniMage: Yeah, so much for all those other poor slobs and their ROI who came to comment on Jeremy's point. - James Poling

Jason, don't mean to sound flippant, but the "hide" option is your friend. I've also found friend-grouping to drastically reduce the noise in my friendfeed :) - Adam Lasnik

I guess I missed all the ego stroking. I thought some egos were getting punched up there, myself. - MiniMage

@Minimage, Steven, James, etc - nobody else really addressed me directly in their comments (with something that needed dispute in one way or another - I didnt realy think I needed to tell someone who agreed with me that i agreed with them for agreeing with me). most of the rest of the comments circled around Robert's arguments, not mine... so i apologize to anyone who said something to me that was waiting on a response, but it just seemed like the conversation had moved along by then. - Jeremy Toeman

@James interesting that you'd take it that way. a little history for you: I was *very* active on FF when it first debuted, and remained so for months. as i (1) became utterly deluged with work, (2) spent a month in the hospital, and (3) the multiple-times-aforementioned babies, my ability to participate as an active member here went way down, roughly to NIL. so now i get no love in return - understandable. i'm not trying to spoil *your* party, I'm observing how there just isn't much of one for me... - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy: Do you have some sort of target number of Likes or comments per hour you invest in FF that you'd consider an acceptable ROI? - Ken Sheppardson

If I post accidently on Thomas hawk account, it's a best of day, on my account, not so much. - Mrsth

@Jeremy: I was being slightly tounge-in-cheek, but I see your point. I have a one-year-old at home and a job that keeps me virtually locked down from about mid-February to mid-April. Because of both of those things there have been times this past year when much, if not all of my networking, blogging and microblogging completely falls off as well. You are right obviously that any... more... - James Poling

@Ken how about 7? just kidding. no, i dont have quite so strict the definition of "ROI" here that I think XX hours of liking, sharing, and commenting should return YY results. but, per James' last point, it's a belief/feeling that to make YY>0 will take a LOT of hours. - Jeremy Toeman

@ Jeremy, @Scobleizer That's why Robert is so good at what he does. Even when he does have those periods of away time (as he will in a few months) when he comes back he will throw himself head first into the deep end and quickly get back with the pack. That's his job so he is afforded that luxury. People like us on the other hand, while our jobs may be peripheral to what Robert does,... more... - James Poling

@James i think i'm going to call that response "bulls-eye" (the one with the "tongue-in-cheek" comment, which was the one i was responding to when the other one showed up mid-typing... yup, i sure would like threads please). - Jeremy Toeman

@Jeremy, awesome. Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya. :) (oh and yes, threads please!) I may start adding that as default ending all of my comments, please add threads. - James Poling

Jeremy, not to beat a very dead horse, but, again, there's nothing wrong with the quality of your contributions. There are people here who get huge response from announcing what they had for dinner. I think the "real-time" design changes and recent uptick in user numbers have forced the most-active users to retreat to lists in order to manage the flood of input. If you're a more casual... more... - Sprague D

@sprague - totally agreed with you on this, sorry for not ack'ing earlier - Jeremy Toeman

@davis - i'm really not trying to "win" anything... - Jeremy Toeman

This far I find FF to be more of a consumption destination than a publishing platform. Interesting thoughts from interesting people but few people I know personally. That's how twitter felt to me 2 yrs ago, difference being FF has actual threads of conversation vs Twitter as a collection of brain farts - Ryan Miller from Nambu

Jeremy, after reading thru the 17+ hours of conversation in this thread that started as I walked out the door last night (i kept tabs on it a bit thru the night) i'm still wondering what 'value' means to you. Was Scoblizer correct in stating that the value to you is where it helps you influence people with large audiences (or however he was stating it)? To me 'value' is very subjective. That seems to be what everyone's caught up on here. - Chris Heath

true, and yet I value the social linking so much. - susan mernit

Russ, that simply isn't true. Several of us have been saying that we like/comment a lot and just don't get the responses back. Furthermore, pretty much like what Sprague said, there are people who can post "eekeek ackack" and get 40 likes and 50 comments, whereas if someone else posted the secret to being a success in life, it would never be noticed. Am I whining about it? I hope not, I just don't want everyone claiming that all FFers will get back what he/she puts in. - MiniMage

This having to be active lots in order to be noticed I do not understand. If I see something that interests me, it doesn't matter to me if the poster had been gone for a week. And as a counterpoint, some threads become big, simply because that person had been missing for a while, and people were excited so see something from them again. Is there some sort of algorithm for this? - MiniMage

Maybe you should try to say something interesting. - Will Higgins™

Yes, that's what people keep saying. Yet people say things that are more interesting than what others who get noticed say (not all the time, granted). What makes someone else's "guess what movie I'm watching" picture more interesting than the ones that don't get noticed? I believe the answer is "nothing." Why should one person's shared YouTube video get no likes or comments, when someone else can post the same thing with no response? It's more complex than the cop-out, "Say something interesting" answer. - MiniMage

If it was that simple, this conversation wouldn't exist or last so long. - MiniMage

@Chris - no, Robert's assumption of what I feel valuable was incorrect. While he is right in that a place where I could specifically remain connected with people in the CE industry *would* be valuable to me professionally, that actually was not part of my lament about FF. his assertion that I don't care about connecting with random folks of all walks of the Internet is way off in this case - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy, thanks for clearing that up. - Chris Heath

MiniMage: What you're describing/lamenting something that happens on just about any social sharing network with 'voting'. The first time I noticed this 'unfairness' was on digg.com when it started to get big in 2006. You will see the same type of complaints on digg: someone who's not as 'popular' submitted a story first, but another 'power user' submitted it after and it was promoted to the front page because of the power users's greater visibility... it's a shame and it's not fair - but that's life i guess - Chris Heath

I've edited the ^above^ post a couple times (if you're watching in real-time) - Chris Heath

Also, speaking of the problems with dupe submissions to digg: from what I understand about the future plans (and from the history of this issue) there will be (and have been) technological steps taken to get the dupe situation under control. - Chris Heath

"Democrats open their four-day convention Monday with political winds at their back, but with a nagging, all-important question before them." - newsjunk.com

After two days of McCain having to try to explain how he could possibly understand the plight of the average Joe when he can't even remember how many houses he owns along with the positive coverage for the Biden pick I kind of think he has already regained the momentum. The convention should just set it in stone. I cannot imagine McCain performing so well at the RNC that he will look like anything other than Bush III. - Jeff Jones

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