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If I deleted my Twitter account would a kitten die? I'm wondering cause more and more of my early adopter friends are moving to other services (I am watching).
Calvin Ayre, tmas68, AKs and 109 other people liked this
Delete it. I showed the way and I have no regrets :-). I think it's the way forward.
- Richard A.
Depends on if you can force them onto FriendFeed. Twitter has become a cesspool of spammers and celebrities, which is usually a sign that it's time for people to move on.
- Mike Nayyar
other services like ?
- Marco
What services are they using.
- Sweyn Venderbush
What are the other services that they are switching to?
- Jason
what are the other services? FF? other?
- nrlaskey
Force them? It's not about forcing anyone to do anything, It's about whether you're still getting anything out of the network you're investing your time into.
- Richard A.
No Kittens die. Most people will follow where you lead.
- Russellreno
I'm not there yet, Richard. But I do note that Facebook is getting more interesting to the early adopter types I usually hang out with.
- Robert Scoble
I'll use my mom's argument: "If all your early adopter friends jumped off a cliff, would _you_ jump off a cliff?"
- Nick
Yes, I'd like to know what services too? And don't say FriendFeed :)
- Michael Pilla
Why would you kill off that audience? At least keep it up with a pointer saying you can now be found at X. You know that if you delete the account, in 6 months, some blogger will write a story about how Robert Scoble doesn't get social media because he's not on Twitter and then it'll be the top story on TechMeme for at least a week.
- Mark Trapp
which other other services are attracting the early-adopter crowd, Robert? Anything cool you can share with us?
- Andrew Terry
I agree with Mike. Once a service has gone mainstream, it's never the same. Good example was SxSW this year. Too many people were using the hash tag for non-related things like "I fed my dog #sxsw" and it jammed up the network, making it hard for people to legitimately find events.
- Allen S.
Sure, no kittens would die. But I continue to find Twitter invaluable and more useful than FriendFeed. However, FaceBook is becoming more useful as a communications and stay-in-touch tool, especially for those with whom I share a relationship of some type.
- Michael Krigsman
Nah, not friendfeed, although it's interesting that this comment is getting more engagement here than on Twitter. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Facebook for the win. It is more interesting to me also. Amazing how they did that.
- Russellreno
What are the other services???
- Jennifer Windrum
Michael: Facebook is the one I'm thinking of. It's coming on very strong with the types of people who made Twitter popular.
- Robert Scoble
@Mike, I was thinking the same thing. We are early adopters (ok, some are earlier than me) and we enjoy the close nit friendships created and nurtured through small groups.
- Damond Nollan
I think you should keep your Twitter account to follow the evolution of Twitter into FriendFeed, through all kind of bolt-on services like Twitpic and Twerbose ( http://twerbose.com/ ).
- Meryn Stol
Trapp, because that audience is only interesting if you get it onto a more conversational platform where anyone can make sense of the conversation a month after it happened. Twitter makes that impossible.
- Richard A.
this is the classic age old early adopter twitch, if you were a real early adopter you wouldnt be asking and you'd be gone already.. fear not however, where ever you go, the masses will follow
- Dan Rockwell
Why delete it? To make a statement? Just abandoning it quietly is a better choice.
- Brian Sullivan
Robert; If twitter was alive and well people would be chatting, not retweeting, they would be conversing with more than one tweet per day per person.
- Richard A.
I'm liking Facebook much more since it's a direct FriendFeed copy, but it'll need to go asymmetrical to kill Twitter.
- Steve Isaacs
I agree that Facebook is becoming more interesting. What I'd like though, is a version of Facebook that doesn't allow any of the really stupid applications. I'm sick of getting poked, hit with a pillow, being served fake beers, etc.
- Chrimmus Tad
Dan: I was a big Facebook user right around when the Platform came out. Then I moved to Twitter cause more of the people I liked to talk with were there. Now I notice the flow is headed back to Facebook and I'm not the only one to make that observation.
- Robert Scoble
the day Facebook will share outward their status update, then it may kill everything else around.... i don't think it can yet.
- Yann Ropars
@Robert: I suspect you've inadvertently validated why projects like Yammer and ESME should do well - 'your early adopter friends' says it all - it's about YOUR community, not everyone's.
- Dennis Howlett
No, seriously...what other services?
- Adam Gonnerman
I use multiple social networking tools.
- Dan Krivolavek
from twhirl
Robert: All my real life friends, and all those I trust are on FB, those I don't trust yet are spread to other networks for the moment.
- Richard A.
Robert: I get why you want to make the personal statement, but given your new role at Rackspace I'd say you really have to be everywhere.
- Ken Sheppardson
and, what's motivating your friends to move? Are other services offering features that Twitter lacks, or is it because they consider Twitter to be too mainstream/overcrowded now?
- Andrew Terry
Yann: not yet, but Facebook is moving in that direction.
- Robert Scoble
so long as you tell us where you're moving, LOL.
- Kayce Maisel
Someone's discovered the Real-time View :)
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
Kayce, he wouldn't be moving ;-). He would simply be re-focusing on another service ;-)
- Richard A.
Andrew: everyone has a different answer. Most of them say they must be on Facebook because their normal friends are there, but aren't on Twitter. Facebook is growing far faster (in terms of people) than Twitter is. Just passed 200 million users, while Twitter is at about 10 million.
- Robert Scoble
i think facebook would be more interesting if they made all profiles public, ala twitter. The openness of twitter is really the win. If facebook can do that then I will consider seriously using it.
- akeem adeniji
Richard W, I've been using the realtime view for weeks by now, or for a while anyway, I live in i. When I'm here.
- Richard A.
I think that any process of "flow" between platforms isn't necessarily final, So I say : keep it. You may need to go back.
- Iain Baker
Still a strong believer in Facebook for personal friends/family, Twitter for public engagement/networking. They work together.
- Ian Mikutel
I think microblogging transcends the specific service you happen to be using. The interesting thing about Twitter is that it's a sort of lowest-common-denominator microblogging platform that makes for a good place for all of the various streams to dump into and/or a good starting point to feed into your other services. But focus will gradually shift from the specific service to the microblog stream as a whole.
- Grey Drane
Twitter is mainstream now; usually indicates the demise is forthcoming
- Tom Allinder
Akeem, there's no way I want my FB profile public.
- Richard A.
What specific functions is Facebook enabling/offering now that are you seeing that is attracting the early adopters back & causing you to consider this? Is it much more than the feed & grouping?
- Lyn Graft
Ian: that was Facebook of yesterday. Zuckerberg told me Facebook will have a public engagement piece too. This is very important for brands, celebrities, news organizations (which is where Twitter is getting its hype). But Facebook is far more engaging, especially now that they copied friendfeed's features (albeit not as well) and Twitter's river of noise.
- Robert Scoble
Judy you're one person I would never follow on twitter in that case.
- Richard A.
Scoble, just delete the thing and be done with it! Who cares if you have a place to land... you yourself recently jumped without a net and it turned out okay. Kill it. You'll sleep better at night. And I agree with Tad, fake beers are teh suk!
- Jim: Dead Like FF
I am not so sure. Twitter is exactly good because it produces some noise. Noise good, since it allows one to be creative in filtering the information out. It gives much more room for chance than e.g. Facebook. If one bunkers into their peer groups, inspiration becomes a very hard thing to get by.
- Mark Jacobs
@Richard how am I supposed to find you on facebook and to discuss similar things if we have never met and aren't in the same groups?
- akeem adeniji
Jim: I had to check if a kitten would die first. :-)
- Robert Scoble
do it maan... its da way forward :)
- simran
from twhirl
Robert, the difference is facebook is more like a village in outlook, there's a good chance many of your friends know many of your other friends. It's a much nicer and social community. We have a lot more freedom in what we post there.
- Richard A.
@Mark - Exactly!
- Grey Drane
I foresee Twitter usage reverting back to status updates, and the micro-blog moving to services with better conversation and filtering/grouping capabilities (like FriendFeed).
- Daniel Sims
Sounds like a great example of jumping on and off bandwagons as they go by. You can post to Twitter from Facebook and vice versa. With Ping.fm. you can post to all the social networks you belong to and spend as much time in whatever platform you want.
- Paul
I don't know if this matters to you or not, but I found Robert and others through Twitter. I "thought" I was connected and well read in the technology/web industry, but with Twitter (and now FriendFeed) I was introduced to a whole new world with new players. If you go back to Facebook alone, I'm afraid people like me would miss out on good people like you. Fortunately, I've subscribed to a great many of industry leaders' blogs, so I guess you can go anywhere and I would be fine, but there are others who.
- Damond Nollan
I told you twitter managment would kill twitter ;-) :-) happy to see it's turning into a reality slowly. Of course this is only a problem for early adopters.
- Richard A.
Paul: I watch engagement, not posting behavior. If you post a Tweet and no one is on Twitter to listen to it, did it really matter?
- Robert Scoble
...haven't been fortunate enough to meet you. I say, do what you feel is best, but know you take a lot of folks with you.
- Damond Nollan
Richard: I've been doing online communities since 1984. The normal people ALWAYS follow the early adopters. I can't think of an example where that was not the case. Early adopters used to be on Prodigy. We aren't anymore. Neither is anyone else. Same for CompuServe. Usenet. AOL. Etc. Etc.
- Robert Scoble
This is how active twitter conversations would have been at one time, Hundreds of tweets on the topic, and you would have followed back many of these people as a result. It would have helped with meeting new people :-)
- Richard A.
Next service to fall... Friendfeed?
- Jordi Soler
Robert: What's your view on the current best replacement for Twitter?
- Michael Krigsman
LOL at Robert. Did you land on a LOLcat?
- Jim: Dead Like FF
Michael: there isn't yet a good replacement, although Facebook is definitely moving in that direction.
- Robert Scoble
ability to tweak friend lists in FB allows de facto asymmetry - just create a "follow" list to see more of, dump all those you wouldn't follow onto a "view less list," drag and drop the more list to the top so FB defaults to it...
- Todd Randolph
Curiously, there are 5 million comments here on FF, and I saw only 2 @ reply on Twitter...from @JMaultasch and @SashaKane...so far, FF wins as a forum where people participate (as opposed to sell).
- Eric Matas
Todd, advantage of lists on Facebook is you can sort your friends according to geography and how you know them. Makes seeing the most relevant news easier as a result, doesn't mean you pay any less attention.
- Richard A.
Eric: Why do you think I jumped from twitter to here? I came for the community.
- Richard A.
Do you have a list of your early adopter friends?
- Paul Sanchez
Twitter is morphing into many different business models (at an alarming pace) and the twitter feeds will continue to be the lifeblood in these new startups.
- Whip
Why do we need to move on like this was a clubbing scene? I think Twitter has its place in the ecology, so has FriendFeed. I would feel most uncomfortable in relating to people I have not met in person on Facebook mostly. Once we go back there, we may as well call LinkedIn or Xing as the next big thing.
- Mark Jacobs
Robert: Keep one thing in mind, all your twitter friends were imported onto Friendfeed the day you did that sync, as a result everyone is still followed, but on a different platform :-)
- Richard A.
I just retweeted and searched...was the 3rd to retweet. Thought the cat part would grab more attention...
- Eric Matas
Heavens no Scoble.
- Roberto Bonini
Robert: Facebook just doesn't have Twitter's ability to easily sift and find interesting new folks in one's particular area of personal interest. That's what I *NEED* and Twitter does it excellently.
- Michael Krigsman
No kittens would die if @scobleizer swam away from the fail whale.
- Bernie Goldbach
I think your kitten would simply ask for a cheezeburger. While Facebook status is becoming more Twitter like, I've found myself using Twitter much more since the demise of Pownce (deep sigh). In my world though Facebook and Twitter are tools I use to connect with different audiences. FB I use primarily for connecting with real world friends, while Twitter is more about sharing info with Webdev/mktg peers. And I like that Twitter is less cluttered even though we're seeing more new spammy users.
- Heidi Cool
Robert, are you sure about that? Do you really know how many times you have mentioned a service on Twitter or Friendfeed or your blg that didn't result in I or others going to that service to find out what it is all about? Adopting an app that you pointed to (e.g. Twhirl). If your measuring engagement by the number of people that respond directly to a post then you and other early adopters are sorely underestimating your reach.
- Paul
I think Twitter still has quite a bit of use. FriendFeed never seemed to have pick up that kind of attention (though I wish it did - its great for conversations!)
- Colin Charles
from twhirl
I think the problem with friendfeed is with its interface... it's a pita
- Marco
Paul: I know there's quite a bit of engagement on Twitter, but other services are going up while Twitter isn't growing so quickly. I track these things.
- Robert Scoble
You mind sharing a few of the early adopters names :)
- Paul Sanchez
Is this comment bait? :) I don't see any benefit to deleating your Twitter. Would you have chosen to delete your radio blog because you were moving on to wordpress?
- Christian Burns
Robert, Would you please give some examples of services that might be better?
- Andrew Pass
Marc: online communities are a LOT like the clubbing scene and that's exactly why some get more popular and others get less.
- Robert Scoble
If early adopters did start jumping off a cliff, I'd be very interested in the cliff.
- Eolaí gan Fhéile
Marco, only thing missing from Friendfeed is to see when people have commented to something you've said, then it would be much more useful.
- Richard A.
Robert, just wondering: What kind of response do you get on Facebook on questions like these?
- Meryn Stol
Meryn: not as strong because I haven't participated in Facebook for more than a year. I should try.
- Robert Scoble
Twitter is much more like an index, without much real / meaningful conversation. Not to say that individual posts aren't meaningful, but they usually lead to real value somewhere else. Friendfeed has much more in-depth conversations. For me, the question is still out there on facebook - it still is mostly a light hearted socializing tool, without much serious value. At least, not yet with the people I know who use it.
- Chris Rogers
Robert, if you move to Facebook I would die, because I'm not in your 5,000. :-(
- Jesse Stay
I agree with Steve, FB would have to go asymmetrical. Only the very tiniest percentage of contacts I have on FB are people I have not interacted with in person face-to-face at some point in my life.
- Andy Kruger
Some of my twitter followers who used to Lifestream in public seem to have moved that function to Facebook... starting in the immediate days following the redesign and the ensuing hubbub.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
I don't think FB is as interesting as Friendfeed. I really do think Friendfeed is the most interesting community to be part of at the moment. It has the potential to build new onlines communities without the hassle of knowing those people in person.
- Richard A.
Like many of the others, I use FB for friends/family. Twitter is where I am getting/sometimes sharing info on tech things that interest me.
- Sherri
Hmm I think it would be quite exciting if the "FriendFeed ethos" would get transferred to Facebook.
- Meryn Stol
Meryn: keep in mind that up to today Facebook is only for discussing stuff with your friends. For me Facebook is capped at 5,000 friends. Facebook's more public entity, though, AKA "Pages," are being expanded and will get more of an equal billing on the social graph. On friendfeed I have 31,000 followers, and this message went to Twitter where I have 76,000 followers. So, that's a LOT more people than I touch on Facebook.
- Robert Scoble
@Chris - Yep! Use Twitter to find the interesting stuff, then follow the tidbit to wherever else it leads in order to discuss it and find the real value in it.
- Grey Drane
why not use identi.ca? - very calm there
- Wittkewitz News
Meryn: actually that's EXACTLY why Twitter is getting more hype, but why people who aren't celebrities (IE, don't have more than 5,000 followers, which includes most of my "early adopter" friends) are not feeling the Twitter love so much anymore.
- Robert Scoble
I'm amused at this conversation because none of you are aknowledging friendfeed as a platform. That's where I came when I deleted my twitter account. I was among the 200 most active users of twitter at the time.
- Richard A.
I second what Richard Azia said: "Marco, only thing missing from Friendfeed is to see when people have commented to something you've said, then it would be much more useful."
- Rick Bucich
It's kind of funny -- when you said "early adopter friends" I thought you meant a "new" service. You're just going back to Facebbok because they've added some better features and have gotten a bump of mindshare. Then some other service will evolve their features, etc. and people will go back.... What I think is really important is the recognition that Twitter, FF, etc. aren't really...
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- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
Steve "bump in mindshare?" Hah! 200 million users is more than a "bump in mindshare." Twitter actually has gotten a bump in mindshare lately. Everytime I turn on the radio or TV I hear about Twitter, it seems.
- Robert Scoble
Great debate
- Dave
Hmm I think it would be a shame if you left FriendFeed. For me it's all about the loose-ties. :) And Twitter, in it's current incarnation (e.g. without a very advanced client, turning it into something similar to FF) just doesn't work if you want to discuss anything but the simplest things.
- Meryn Stol
I hear about twitter a lot more but I don't see anyone using it anymore? Are there any signs that people are still reading tweets, rather than just posting?
- Richard A.
for an early adopter, a site /technology become's stale within 6-9 months.. the hype and fun is finito.. as such I was active from feb/07 .. I think I was the 300th odd person on twitter and by OCt/08.. I hardly use twitter.. yes early adopters keep moving on.. thats why they are called "early adopters" :)-
- Peter Dawson
Mohamed: Heheh. Even if you have thousands of friends you can't publish to the public (ie, Google can't index your facebook stuff). That's one reason why Twitter and friendfeed are more interesting.
- Robert Scoble
If a person uses Twitter because they want people to follow and pay them attention, I could care less. Twitter continues to be a useful micro-blogging tool, as long as it is free. If Twitter is fun, I'll use it. If it is just a new way to market shit, and if they start charging for it, I'll be gone. It seems that people are now getting more attention just for leaving Twitter. Good riddance.
- John Johnson
Facebook is trying to be everything. The path from Yearbook to Aggregator-cum-microblogger is long and hard.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
So there is no equivalent to this on FaceBook? http://twitter.com/search... Because that is one of the most interesting things about Twitter. Following subjects is often more interesting than following people.
- Matt Griffith
Let me ask a question back to you. What value would you derive from deleting your Twitter account?
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas: well, I would get a lot less auto DM spam. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Didn't Leo delete his Twitter account at one point?
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas: yeah, he did, then he came back. Hasn't seemed to hurt him, other than he isn't on Twitter's recommended follower list.
- Robert Scoble
But why would less DM spam matter? How would deleting the account provide more value than simply leaving it intact and ignoring it?
- Thomas Hawk
I triple dog dare ya.
- timedalkat
from twhirl
another thing that friendfeed has not: a decent client
- Marco
Thomas, You can't ignore a twitter account, that's why :-), There's no way you can walk away from a functioning account. Many of us have tried and not quite succeeded more than 8 days.
- Richard A.
Thomas, I think he just "left" for awhile and returned when it was clear Jaiku didn't have enough people on it
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
I guess my point is why delete the account? Simply ignore it. That way if you decide later on that you want to come back it's still there. You might find that you want it back at some point. At a minimum though you can still direct your FF content there which includes a link back to your conversation here with every tweet. I'd think this would be a good encouragement for people not on FF yet who are on Twitter to find you here.
- Thomas Hawk
that and maybe change your bio I'm mostly participating on FF or Facebook or whatever.
- Thomas Hawk
personally I find FF far, far, more engaging than Facebook. But maybe that's just me.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas I agree wih you, I like FF for that.
- Richard A.
This is one of those threads that's just too big/fast to try to catch up at this point, but instead of being the jerk who comes in and says something that was said early in the thread because they're too lazy/busy to catch up, I'll just demonstrate what you're supposed to do in this situation. *shuts up*
- Matthew DeVries
Twitter is becoming mainstream, even in such backwards countries as Ukraine. For a true geek, it is a sure sign to get out of here! However, for me it is still interesting for the dynamics of signal/noise ratio within system.
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
Yeah, but to your point, you can't talk to the public and a lot more people will follow you on Twitter that will never friend you on Facebook. I'm speaking generally, here.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
This really is just an intellectual exercise, right? How can you be talking about all this Building43 stuff and promoting "social media" then turn around and talk about disappearing from the "social media" service with more MSM press/attention than any other right now?
- Ken Sheppardson
What would YOU gain from deleting it? is it more than you would gain from keeping it? You use Twitter in your own way which is most likely vastly different than anyone else who uses it, but that doesn't matter, it's up to you to decide how to use it and how to gain value out of it. It is a tool. Whether or not you want to delete it should be based on what YOU think in terms of value, not others.
- Ivan Lukianchuk
Ken: It's April 1, take that in mind. Yes, it's just an intellectual exercise, although I was dreaming about it last night so at least part of me wants to do it. Building43 is for people fanatical about the Internet, not going to be about any one thing or even just about social media.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: April 1 is Wednesday. You going to keep this up for three days? :-O
- Ken Sheppardson
Within two months your account will be deleted. There's a chance. If you think about it then it's not just a thought, there's a reason there, somewhere.
- Richard A.
Ivan: overall I would probably lose more than I'd gain, but I've learned in life that you must destroy before you can build. When Vegas builds a new casino they tear down the old one first. The trick is to know when the right time is to tear down the old one. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Azia, you are using the "royal we" or you are talking about an undefined group... and I personally wouldn't make such over-generalizations even with a :-)
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
in this atmosphere of many super-user account, a simple account is useless.
- abdellah
Steve: unlimited friends are coming to Facebook "soon." (We already have them on Pages).
- Robert Scoble
Besides, Twitter is a lot easier to use and more open... and there's no application spam. I hate app spam.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
Yeah, but there's still a signal-to-noise problem. FB wants to be your social presence on the Web. People don't want an unsuable presence on the Web. They want to see what parties their friends are having and what their high school ex-girlfriend is up to. As a richer social medium, Facebook is much more vulnerable to Dunbar-number-type limitations for the average user. When someone...
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- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
Does anyone know the mean or median number of friends for FB users?
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
ccheath just said 120. makes sense.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
It's interesting, but as a non-blogging, earlier-than-early-adopter-burnout, FB feels like AOL to me in an uncomfortable way. In spite of that creepy feeling, it seems to be where I get the most engagement for the least amount of effort. Of course, my FB circle is a tight one of 99% friends from over the past 30 yrs. Seems I only glance at Twitter & interact more deliberately on FF. FB is pointing out I seem to have less in common with my friends & I'm less friendly with common-interest acquaintances.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
Twitter is "mainstream" with 10 million users, but Facebook with 200 million isn't? FB is a mess and whenever I log on I start getting real-time chat requests from people I haven't talked to in 10 years. I find Twitter to be a superior experience so far.
- Pete Smith
It's been interesting to watch the evolution of Twitter. Sadly now there is a tremendously large amount of noise covering up the best signal. Even worse, the changes that have occurred to Twitter as a result of the flood of people from the masses has been painful. I much prefer the Twitter of circa June 2008 and just prior when there was more functionality (a la track) and better discussion. In fact I much prefer seeing the fail whale than seeing Britney Spears occupying such a large mind-share there.
- Chris Aldrich
+1000 to chris kim a. FB feels like AOL to me - tons of spam, tons of intimate minutia, very little engaging content. I DON'T WANT YOUR PLANTS. It feels like work and doesn't relate to anything outside of itself. FF offers engaging, substantive conversations sprinkled with LOLCats. Twitter offers bite-sized entertainment, and (some) real-time interaction that doesn't have to involve a chat client. I prefer the latter two and consume most of my content there.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Facebook is a student community where the students have graduated as a result of which more options are now offered. When are people going to remember that fact?
- Richard A.
Where are your friends going instead?
- Rae Gross
via PETA autobot: STOP MURDERING SEA-KITTENS, ROBERT SCOBLE! :)
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
@Richard_Azia: I've always been clear on that point, which is part of what makes it so disturbing. Finally, my RL friends (now the parents of the original target FB audience) -- but to my horror, they have regressed into Super-Poking, Green-Patching Hippie-Gifters. Look, if you can SuperPoke me, then you can post a "hey how are you?" to my In box or wall. Frankly, I don't find the games of FB particularly engaging as a 21st-Century version of pigtails in inkwells, either.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
@Steve +1 to app spam on FB. Hate it!
- Grey Drane
from BuddyFeed
Chris Kim, that's why I ignore all requests. Much easier to ignore them than to reject them. Luckily those I know hardly spend any time doing all those things.
- Richard A.
If you deleted your account what would happen to the scobleizer name. Could someone else claim it? Or is once a name used on Twitter it is forever off the table? If you changed your mind later could you get the scobleizer handle back?
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas: I don't know. I won't delete it, though. It was mostly a fantasy I was having last night. See, normal people dream of supermodels or getting a cool car. Me? I dream of deleting my Twitter account. :-)
- Robert Scoble
@Scobleizer "But I do note that Facebook is getting more interesting to the early adopter types I usually hang out with" I would say "for Internet newbies" LOL Green Houses (Walled Gardens) are usually better for a start - no scary wolfs like in Green Forrest ROFL :D
- Lora Lufark
I refuse to believe true early adopters are all-of-a-sudden enamored with Facebook because they copied a few things from Twitter and Friendfeed...then again...
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
And here we are, the very reason I continue to hold that FF is my favorite engagement tool. These comment-baiting discussions naturally epitomize the value of eating one's own dog food while also pointing out that there are more dishes at this potluck than the one you bring yourself.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
Offer your account on eBay and see who bids. Then sell them something else.
- Louis Gray
Never delete a well-known account. If you were to delete the Twitter account, then some offshore porn gambling site would grab the @scobleizer name. That having been said, Twitter is seeming to become a "must have" thing, so even if you don't use it, you need to establish a presence there.
- John E. Bredehoft
I just don't see the what Twitter gives you when you have FriendFeed.
- TranceMist
TranceMist - With all of the recent news coverage of Twitter, a lot of people are on Twitter who haven't yet learned about FriendFeed and they will ask the opposite question that you just asked.
- Aaron Hood
If Scoble deleted his twitter account it must be the results of Global Warming
- rob friedman
from twhirl
Rename it then auction it off.
- Ryan Stanley
No, might not die, but but Kitty would be sad: http://tinyurl.com/c8fcc3
- Sarah Garnsey
I don't see why you'd delete it rather than just not tweet, other than a very visible snub to the Twitter guys, right?
- jjprojects
I doubt that Twitter would miss you, though your ego obviously tells you otherwise.
- Stan Scott
Seriously? You guys just realized that Facebook is interesting? I've looked up to you... I had no idea I was already ahead.
- Jaica Kinsman
Robert - I've made the same conclusion as you re: Facebook gaining popularity fast with early adopters like myself, who by the way are not able to connect with you on facebook due to 5K cap. Don't delete twitter, just move to where you prefer to engage your communities.
- Susan Beebe
Facebook is the new AOL. I am using Facebook more often to stay connected with Mom and the family, but I would not replace twitter with it. no way.
- Karoli
from BuddyFeed
Maybe early adopters are spending time on Facebook to try to figure out its appeal. I think they'll conclude it's just network effects and empty virality, then leave again.
- Bruce Lewis
You actually still use both? I thought you'd moved exclusively to FriendFeed... Who cares about Twitter anymore? IT SUCKS!
- LarchOye
Experiment: If I say "SEO" or "peanut butter" in this FriendFeed post, let's see how long it takes Jiffy peanut butter company or their "SEO Expert" to subscribe to my FriendFeed to try and sell me something. Ready, set, go! (I like twitter, but it's becoming a drag because the marketing spam is now so damn predictable.)
- TheMacMommy
Is there a Mac solution yet for porting our twitter buds (the ones we actually want to follow) into FriendFeed? I was looking but gave up on it for a little while. Anyone know the scoop on that? I'll admit, I'm lazy. I want a script to do it for me. on the Mac.
- TheMacMommy
I really hope you don't start to use Facebook instead of Twitter. I don't like Facebook at all..
- Peter
Facebook first movers are migrating to twitter. So there is nothing unnatural in this. People move back and forth all the time. The grass is always greener on the other side etc etc...
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
I entered twitter late and realize friendfeed is mindcastier than twitter...
- Arunn
Mindcastier?
- Richard A.
Only the Calico ones?
- rob friedman
Robert, Why don't you just increase your activity on Facebook and decrease it on Twitter and then if Facebook is alot better then Twitter then fully convert and if not, you've still got 19k updates and 77k followers ;)
- Nicholas James
You can install (or ask a coder to develop) a Facebook App that sends your status updates (and shared links, etc.) to Twitter. You have a history with getting your data out of Facebook, but I guess Zuckerberg now knows you better. This is what most brands do: they make the effort to be everywhere, to suit they many followers. Or you can re-use Jaiku recently opened source (+ App Engine) to make the micro-blogging platform or your dreams.
- Bertil Hatt
I hardly use Twitter these days.
- Jim Connolly
Interesting thread. I can see why Robert is saying Facebook. It has been the place that I gave received the most interaction these past few months. True that, I am just a wee one and most of my FB friends are real world friends. :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
information overload.... my nose is bleeding,...shutdown imminent 3....2........1....... (no kitten would die, btw)
- ilter
Twitter is useful, though FriendFeed appears to be more so.
- Calvin Ayre
Chinese and Korean versions of Dev2Dev, Dev2DBA, and Arch2Arch newsletters in the pipe
wrecks liked this
Great News! Twitter Clones Begin Closing Down…Starting with Pownce. - http://thenextweb.com/2008...
LouCypher, torr, Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ and 9 other people liked this
Good riddance to bad rubbish...
- Zee.
Never used it. Guess that says something.
- Derrick
Yep, but if Twitter doesn't learn how to monetize, they won't be around either in a few years - regardless of competition of there lack of.
- David Wilson
i kind hope twitter dies too...seriously.
- Zee.
me too, zee.
- Jim: Dead Like FF
Harsh words guys, why so hostile?
- Simon Wicks
So pownce is getting Sandied.
- Jim: Dead Like FF
Simon, for my thoughts really best to read my thoughts in the post but frankly I'm sick of services that have had the time to at least get bugs fixed and highly requested features added...and never do and wonder why they're not doing well. Twitter is up there and *if* they continue the way there are - they'll get what they deserve.
- Zee.
Ok mainly a bugs thing then. I wrote a big rant here about Twitter, but then decided not to post it, as we dont wanna get off topic. ill save it for another time :)
- Simon Wicks
i'm sure there'll be plenty of appropriate occasions... :)
- Zee.
I don't think Pownce ever got the traction it needed.
- Paul W. Swansen
I subscribed to Pownce and never bought in. Why? With FriendFeed and Twitter. Plus, information overload, I focused my energy on FF and Twitter instead.
- ka3drr
Pownce was acquired for the talent. Personally, I never got Pownce, but I am sorry to see it go. People that were using it (and liked it) are left out in the cold all of a sudden.
- Ryan Twomey
I think it was pretty clear once co founder kevin rose started advertising his twitter account instead of his pownce account that the end was near.
- Aaron D'Amico
I tried Pownce and didn't like the format. I'm very much into using SM platforms that work for me and it didn't so I bailed. More of us need to do that. We have to control it...not let it control us.
- Angela
I really enjoyed Pownce for a while. If they hadn't had all of their technical problems earlier this year I might not have made it here onto FF.
- Chrimmus Tad
Got my themes on in Gmail. Lovin it.
Which one are you using?
- Mike Abundo
from twhirl
Ninja for me.
- wrecks
I went searching for them today and couldn't find them either. Then I logged out and the log out screen reset to a theme and talked about them. I logged back in and again couldn't find them. I gave up.
- Al Stevens
"mountains" theme for me.
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
Summer Ocean for me, especially on a gray PNW day.
- Ginger Kenney
Ninja - I like the colors and line angles...my 12 year old daughter prefers Candy, though..
- Tom Mack
A little iPhone organization would be nice - http://www.veronicabelmont.com/2008...
Ingo, Charlie Anzman, felix and 9 other people liked this
Definitely agree. I have a feeling they'll be fixing this.
- MG Siegler
This post is dedicated to Daynah, who "nudged" me into blogging more! :)
- Veronica
MG, yeah, I'm really hoping to see this soon. Not sure why it wasn't there right out of the gate though...
- Veronica
Honestly they need to incorporate this in all 3 areas, the App Store, your own App Folder and the Apps on the phone itself. The Apps store is messy at best, the sub directories or are ok, but really not that useful. Not to mention you cant sort by say, sub directory, free, date and search name. Then like you said, once you have it, its in your apps able to sort them and it sync to the phone. Hurry up and study programing so you can get this done for us quick quick k :)
- Socom
The app updating problem on the iPhone (not iTunes) is just sloppy and unnecessary. Very un-Apple.
- Harrison Hoffman
I think Apple overestimated how much we all like the apps wiggling when you move them :)
- MG Siegler
sigh. friendfeed and twitter not only suck the ideas for blog posts out of my head, they also suck all the comments off the blog post!
- Veronica
Veronica, welcome to the power of twitter and friendfeed! :)
- imabonehead
heh.. ok got that subtle hint.. lol
- Socom
Veronica - you have my permission to pretend to be me and republish my comments on your blog if it makes you feel better. the pretending to be me is the key part though. you must be in character when you do so.
- MG Siegler
Veronica, that's why I turned off comments on my meager blog. But if you use WordPress, there's a plug-in that will integrate FF comments back into your blog.
- Paul Reynolds
Paul, that is an excellent idea. MG, how could I ever POSSIBLY hope to pull that off :)
- Veronica
Veronica - it's all about the glasses. that's all you really need. speaking in the batman voice is purely bonus.
- MG Siegler
MG - Agreed. I love the icon jiggle as much as the next guy, but this is just ridiculous. :)
- Harrison Hoffman
The plug-in: http://blog.slaven.net.au/wordpre... (couldn't paste the URL from the iPhone- grrrrr)
- Paul Reynolds
Just added the plugin! Can't see it though at the moment, I think I VDoS'd myself.
- Veronica
I haven't used it, but I've seen it running several places. You may need to edit/update the entry? An example: http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/wordpre... (scroll to the bottom)
- Paul Reynolds
That application can be done just by Apple. If "we mortal"try to built it, I think they will reject it as happened to: http://almerica.blogspot.com/2008...
- funkyboy
from Posty
LED Football iPhone App - http://www.ledfootball.com/
Glenn Batuyong, Andrew Perry, Cheryl Jones and 13 other people liked this
What a great idea! The irony of it all is a bonus.
- Paul Reynolds
authenticity matters ... *agree* irony like nostalgia are valued beats fear & envy - arguably less valuable ... except schadenfreud ;-)
- Wes Schadenfreud
Oooooh!!!!!!!
- Jim Goldstein
Excellent!
- Enrique Gutierrez
from twhirl
I just might have to reach into my wallet to pay for that app.
- wrecks
Whoa.. I had that as a kid
- Rodfather
OMG... showed that to Jason and he said "SWEET!" Spot the children who grew up in the 80s.
- Cyndy
Still at my parents place (from one of my younger brothers) , grandkids ( now 15-28) still play with it. Wasn't there a baseball one as well?
- Brian Sullivan
My brother had a football game with a green outer shell. It was more a one player game. This one was for head to head. I remember having a few of those old Nintendo Game & Watch games too. We may have gotten rid of them in a garage sale years ago.
- Rodfather
Coleco games I think? Anybody ever own an "Adam"?
- Brian Sullivan
It is based upon what was re-released as Mattel Classic Football (and the green case was Football II) They even had a keychain version =) also baseball, basketball, and car racing. http://linkfeed.com/am...
- RAD Moose
60 Resources for Big Brother Fans ( http://mashable.com/2008... )
James Williams and wrecks liked this
Am I the Only Person on the Planet who Can’t Stand Twhirl? - http://chris.pirillo.com/2008...
Mike Fruchter, Fats Leroy, Svartling and 7 other people liked this
Chris i have to disagree with you on this one. I truly like twhirl, it is so comfortable and easy to use, saves many open FF windows and lets you control FriendFeed, Twitter, identi.ca and seesmic in one place. The only glitch for me is the entering events sound, it is an ear killer, i hope loic and the guys will change it to a softer version.
- Nir Ben Yona
I absolutely love twhirl for it's design (looks slick IMO) and for the very fact that it allows me to tweet so much more efficiently. I like the AIR platform as well, so it's a plus that it was built on that. I do agree with others who have complained about it's network issues, but I'm not sure how much of that is twhirls fault and how much of it is twitters.
- Ian Mikutel
I like Thwirl, but I distaste the huge memory requirements of Air apps
- Alexander Kucera
I used to love twhirl - but that was back when Twitter was online - its friendfeed interface sucks..
- Riaz Kanani
Twhirl is a really good program and definitely makes FF and Twitter (and to an extent Seesmic) a much, much more efficient tool for me. The audio isn't a problem ... I simply turn the volume off for Twhirl (thanks to Vista's per application audio mixer)
- Soulhuntre
@Soulhuntre did you just praise Vista? Heresy!
- Jon Price
Yes, Chris. Just you. You always knew it was just you, and it is. Happy now? :P
- Neal Jansons
from twhirl
You like turtle wax and that's just as cool
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
On the Mac, I have huge problems (sometimes, the app's window coordinates go wrong and the app is drawn off-screen, have to erase preferences file to restore) with Air applications. That's a show-stopper for me.
- Guillaume Lemoine
No, you're not. It's basically crap. People just like it becaiuse it's the best, not because it's good.
- Andrew Garrett
Demon: I cast thee out!!
- john conroy
No. I hate Twhirl. In fact, I hate everything that runs on Adobe AIR. :P
- Rom Feria
Yes
- Curtis "Billy" Cross
from twhirl
To be honest I hate pretty much ALL Twitter clients. I use the web page when I need to dip into it. But both the Twhirl and Twitterific UIs are awful IMO
- Jamie
What is it you don't like about Twhirl? (I like that it enables me to use Twitter and FF so easily, even though it does have a few annoying characteristics)
- Lisa Creech Bledsoe
from twhirl
Hi Chris.. I use twhirl, i hate it in the past time but now, i reaaly like it... perfect really good now with the new version and i reaaly dont have any trouble whit it...
- Victor Hugo Mendez Muñoz
I don't see what the problem is with Twhirl. I've tried most of the other Twitter clients--and I rarely use the Twitter web page--but I always come back to Twhirl. I turn off the notifications so it's unobtrusive, but it's there when I want it. I love being able to mark tweets as read, and I like the way it incorporates FriendFeed. I'm a Twhirl fan.
- Jim Milles
from twhirl
its the only twitter app i found that lets me keep multiple accounts open easily... but it needs a TON of usability work...
- Jeremy Toeman
I love twhirl, works with friendfeed too!
- Douglas Porter
from twhirl
Yes.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
I think it's pretty good, a little annoying when your "like" an article and it immediately jumps to the top of the list but still good. I tend to use the real thing though. Twhirl starts to eat up my computers resources so gets switched off. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
yes
- Thom Allen
from twhirl
Well, I like it. XD
- Brandon Klevence
DirecTV to boast 130 HD channels on August 14th, 1080p movies later this year - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...
Charlie Anzman, Ray Slakinski, Carlos Ayala and 5 other people liked this
I'm tempted to switch, although I'd lose my Comcast Triple Play discount. I hate how Comcast compresses many HD channels anyway.
- wrecks
tv is so 2004
- adolfo foronda
Everytime Comcast has to come out to work on my Internet they get pissed when they see my Dish Network antenna and make some snarky comment about my cabling like they own it or something. Then they double check the filter to make sure I'm not stealing cable. Why would I? I have the everything pak from Dish. Keep your crappy analog. Geesh.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
TimeWarner has been sending near-monthly letters promising they are adding more HD content, yet for over a year now, even with the "HD" package, I only have the initial dozen or so that were available when I upgraded, and most of those are broadcast locally anyway. I really wish they'd turn off the "Also available in HD" slug if they aren't including the "on DirecTV" part.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
Watched Direct TV at a friends house and I have to say it was the same or better than cable and cheaper. If i didn't live in a condo I would switch right now!
- Eric_T
TiVo HD and DirecTV don't play nice together. Actually they don't work at all. TW cable is crap and so 1980's. Sweaty dudes with cables come to your house. And the compression sucks. I'm stuck.
- Dean Terry
While DishNetwork continues to take it away. Time to switch.
- jcunwired
I've actually had the same service/account, but it started with MediaOne, which got bought by AT&T, then Comcast and now TWC (which isn't even part of TW anymore). Remarkably, the same counter staff, install contractors, techs, etc. Just new logos, uniforms, and levels of frustration. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Meh.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
A quick plug for the http://satelliteguys.us web site if you need to know the goings on in sat TV.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Why Twitter must die (must read) - http://chrisbaskind.com/2008...
Rob, Bob Goyetche, Justin Yost and 4 other people liked this
Ouch. It's humiliating to be described as "servile" if you still feel some affection for Twitter, but I suppose declarations like this might help point up to the Twitter team how serious the disaffection is becoming. You get tired of subsistence living over time.
- Amyloo
Why Twitter Must Die - http://chrisbaskind.com/2008...
Mitchell Tsai, Kevin Goldsmith, Lauren Ellsworth and 13 other people liked this
This is spot on.Unfortunately communities are very strange animals. They resist change at all cost. Specially after all the effort put in establishing relationships that can't be ported over, people will stick with Twitter for a long time.
- Jorge Escobar
they are down again it seems. Right now because of "overload"!
- Scott Lockhart
Finally, someone who agrees with me. We shouldn't have to accept this level of service
- Bwana ☠
More press (bad or good), more traffic. More traffic, more loyalty. Twitter will never die this way.
- Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ
I think Jorge Escobar is right. I don't expect Twitter's community to move away quickly. We early adopters went there because we're early adopter and love to try new things. Now that it's catching on though, the majority of people are there because of the other people that are there. Momentum, well, more precisely, inertia, is in Twitter's favor.
- John F Morton
When will investors force management change -- or is it too late?
- Brian Sullivan
Twitter is the Teflon web service. This will be ancient history a week from now.
- Mike Doeff
[FriendFeed]: Why Twitter must die (must read) http://chrisbaskind.com/2008...
Joshua Hayworth, wrecks, Chuck and 6 other people liked this
This is absolutely true, down time is one thing, messing with communities is a lot more serious. I recently just signed up at Plurk and I'm gonna be looking at identi.ca soon.
- Zach Underwood
AT&T Testing Voice Web App for iPhone - http://cultofmac.com/att-tes...
wrecks and Glenn Batuyong liked this
iPhone desperately needs a decent voice dialer and voice command app. My WinMo device had a great one that was very accurate for my 1000 contact addressbook without training.
- wrecks
The Blackberry also has the excellent no-training required voice dialer by VoiceSignal. They're doing iPhone dev, but oddly not voice dialing for it...http://www.voicesignal.com/solutio...
- Paul Reynolds
Hrm. Looks like VoiceSignal hasn't been very active (or at least on their website) for nearly a year.
- Paul Reynolds
Has/How/Why tech blogging has failed you - http://scobleizer.com/2008...
Yaroslav Nikolaev, Adam, Dimitar Vesselinov and 174 other people liked this
Long rant, sorry, had to clear the air so I can start blogging again. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Wow...I'm very interested and excited to see/hear/read what is to come from Scobleizer land next.
- Justin Korn
I hope I make your list and if not, please let me know why so I can potentially improve.
- Allen Stern
Glad to see that you are starting to realize, despite Techmeme that the world doesn't revolve around just the bay area.
- Harold Gilchrist
from twhirl
Gotta say you're bang on the mark there. Tech blogging should be about the tech, not the biz.
- Luke Robinson
Allen: I like your blog. It's just that I love hanging out with all of you and talking geeky stuff a lot more than talking about this deal and that deal and all that.
- Robert Scoble
Harold: I've always realized that. I feel I got unfairly tagged with believing the world only was about the Bay Area. I guess I deserved that to some extent, but this area is quite dominant in the world of tech (including the tool you're typing on right now) so some of my boosterism is to be expected. Funny that the top Israeli company has offices here too.
- Robert Scoble
Kudos to you Mr. Scoble, what a very bright post you delivered today! Thank you for bringing some fresh perspective, that's always refreshing and welcome. I'm also happy you cite Lifehacker as an example. They focus on the smartest digital experience possible and help us improve ourselves. That's the biggest deal of all. Techbloggers should never forget it.
- c0wb0yz
I love the tech first and foremost but the business is important too, especially in respect to the sustainability of said tech.
- Jamie
Jamie: I agree. But the business needs to serve the customers and the customers/participants/users or whatever you want to call you and me aren't coming first in this industry anymore and that's worrying.
- Robert Scoble
Wow funny enough thats the way i have been feeling for a while now I am looking forward to seeing what is next from the Scobelizer...
- John Spencer
from twhirl
I agree overall - CN has only a small percentage of biz - most is trends, analysis, and reviews. I had an interesting discussion about this with someone last week - if i had a computer that could handle video, i'd make a quick video to explain - there's an important part you are missing
- Allen Stern
Next is to get some sleep. Gotta be up at 7:30 to be at Fortune Conference at 8 a.m. for breakfast. It's an incredible conference, hope to see some of you at the Tweetup at 5:45 p.m.
- Robert Scoble
This is often relevant from major blogs/ celeb bloggers. The smaller and more personal blogs are still focusing just on tech ;) Perhaps you need to update your feeds :-)
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
Allen: will be watching in the morning for what I was missing. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I had to stop ranting at some point, it was getting too long! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Dennis: I know. It's why I spend a lot more time here lately than on blogging. The smaller stuff shows up here a lot more regularly and I see a lot less "Yahoo business news."
- Robert Scoble
Excellent post Robert. It's why I don't read Techmeme as much as I used to. The life and joy in exploring, playing with and dissecting tech, the geeky exuberance in 'new stuff' has been lessened across almost all tech sites in general, leaving a bland veneer that is just business talk. Things a geek like me doesn't care about, as I'm not an investor.
- Mo Kargas
Techmeme has suffered because most of the tech blogs they follow have become nothing more then PR outlets like you said.
- Harold Gilchrist
from twhirl
As I posted in your comments, that's a really good post. It's great to see the old Scoble back - the one who I started reading back when your "latest thing" was Tablet PC! Welcome back, mate.
- Ian Betteridge
Robert, blogging is becoming commercialized, as it becomes popular. I do not see it as a problem. It just might mean that you and a bunch of other likely minded people have to move on to a greener, more fascinating and less populated pastures. Like friendfeed, etc. Luckily, there are lots of them around and tons in the pipeline. Enjoy!
- Павел Романовский
I don't know, Robert. On the one hand I agree 100%. And can I say that as editor of WebWorkerDaily I am the one who gets those 15 press releases a day and I *constantly* have the "is this useful?" filter on. I hope that's clear in our postings. Anyway...Your post is kind of like the person who is used to picking their own corn complaining about the supermarket because it's not the same garden. It's not. The grocer has to pay its bills, as does the paid tech blogger.
- Judi Sohn
I know I am a newie to all this but I have been reading blogs for a while. I've bee thinking up a response and I'll post later. Long comments on the iPhone make for one queasy bus ride.
- Derick Valadao
Finally. Thank you. I follow 357 feeds. Everyday. Granted I have many pop-sites (lifehacker, engadget, etc) on the list. But not one is of these "new breed" of tech bloggers out there. Even though I am in the industry, they do not speak to me. They are just another form of CNN to me. Linking to each other and regurgitating the same gibberish, no matter how relevant or important, it does not speak to me. Anyway, welcome back! This is very refreshing news to me. I will be following it with much interest. TY!
- Carlos Ayala
We should all just organize a "Tech Blog Strike", unsubscribing to those blogs that only push press releases. Let's see how they sweat when they see their subscriber count falling...
- Jorge Escobar
Obviously my previous comment was "tldr". I just wanted to say how great it is that a person in your position is able to repurpose his content to better fit the goal you are trying to reach with your content. It's a great direction to take in a time where most blogs are just trying to echo up to the top.
- Derick Valadao
Excellent post on the state of the blogging nation.
- Sheila Thomson
My only real problem with tech bloggins is how easily ideas take hold and spread to get page hits. This is very easily seen in the Vista hatred - there was never any objective reasonf or it... but it was so useful for traffic generation and looking cool that it was rampant.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
It's probably less about the business/tech divide, and more about me-too echo blogging
- Dave Pelland
I think so... tech bloggers are jsut as easily victims of peer pressure and memes as anyone. Once an Idea ("love google") defines someone as "getting it" then few will look at it objectively.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
This is a welcome breath of fresh air. Fantastic.
- Pete Gilbert
Scoble. Great post. Agree completely.
- Tom Quinn
Super excellent post and, ironically, exactly what blogging is all about. One good thing about an economic downturn, it will weed a lot of fluff out of the infosphere -- with less incentive to act as promotional platforms for startups, blogs may get more informative about using established tech.
- Sprague D
Great article Robert. It is your authenticity even more than your tech blogging that has made you the great writer that you are. Anyone can report Apple's earnings yesterday. You have always had an honest voice though that makes your writing stand out.
- Thomas Hawk
The take away is 'sensational headlines'. Add to the "Rumor:" and we don't need this stuff unless it's coming from a tabloid format site
- Charlie Anzman
Blogging is about saying what I want to say, and sharing things that I like with anybody who cares to listen. I'm not interested in driving traffic (thank goodness) or repeating what others have said, but contributing to a discussion.
- Chris Nixon
Great post Robert. Very good read and right on the mark. I religiously read feeds in Reader, but only a few that help me. I love Lifehacker. Almost everyday I find something new and useful to my job.
- Gary Schmidt
The Techie audience thirsty for knowledge is much smaller then the Get-rich-quick audience, but the largest demographic are the Free-lunch boys. The blogs with the most revenue have tricked their advertisers into believing teenage boys are business decision makers.
- paul mooney
I love tech bloggers and the things they write about. The good ones will always come at a common topic from a different angle and I just LOVE that because it makes me think outside the box and start connecting dots all over the place. Robert you are definitely one of those bloggers that I love to read and I don't think any of the ones I read have failed me.
- Devlin Dunsmore
from twhirl
Awesome reading! THX a bunch!!
- Ronald
I have to agree about the comments system though. One thing that we started to see a while ago was data portability and being able to communicate accross services. I think Disqus does that quite well and it's a great first step to making sure that the comments system becomes a little more useful on blogs.
- Derick Valadao
Well said Robert, left a comment, said my piece, cheers!
- Steve Spalding
Wow, an impressive and honest assessment of some major issues in the techblogosphere.
- Richard Akerman
Robert - I'm not in the tech industry. But I love what lots of tech stuff has done for learning stuff in my life and for others. And I want to keep on learning. You've certainly helped me here - I wouldn't know a fraction as much about using Friendfeed productively, for example. Glad we're going to see more of this kind of stuff. Welcome back.
- Tom Landini
Knocked it out of the park. If we can just get back to being geeks again, a lot of this drama will calm itself...
- Jared Smith
Great read, but kind of depressing the way things have gone. I just like being a bit geeky and all things will work out in the end.
- Alan Ashley
from twhirl
Shripriay, you hit it on the head. It is a shame that all the tech bloggers just wants to be Engadet or Gizmodo these days.
- Harold Gilchrist
from twhirl
Nice writeup Robert. I enjoyed your detailed analysis & history of the situation. Perhaps you can lead us in a new direction?
- Mitchell Tsai
i read the tech bloggers then try to actually use the gadget. would like to hear more results from the usage angle.
- Lee Kent
Shripriya, I agree with you wholeheartedly. My original comment was much longer but got cut due to length. I wish more blogs were like Louis Gray and Lifehacker which take a step back and then hit us with posts that are useful/interesting almost 100% of the time. Zero Punctuation is a great example for the gaming crowd--one post a week, internet fame.
- Derick Valadao
Hmm... A Scoble article I like.... Is this the Seventh Seal? Seriously, you're right on in that the echo chamber of groupthink has made tech blogging boring and predictable. I think there's a few people out there fighting it, and FF makes it easier to find them. I think you're off on the business side, though... I think it SHOULD be about the technology, but the entrepreneurs coming out of the Valley have made it necessary for us to discuss the business side by not having solid business plans.
- Jason Carreira
Anyway, hope this is a sign of things to come from you.
- Jason Carreira
Thanks Robert. Great read, and perspectives. Love to see more on productivity, like Lifehacker. Just became a GTD convert BTW and loved the David Allen piece.
- Jericho
Thanks for that Robert -- perspective is key.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
I'm sorry but those that don't scale are toast, from a commericial and traffic standpoint. I know that is part of the point (varying aims and objectives of blogging etc.)
- Alex Hammer
Slap your self and get back on that horse Robert. You have NOT failed us. Human nature makes us want what we do not have. For some it's page views/revenue, for trolls it's attention, and others it's n-list status. The rest of us are looking to quench our thirst for knowledge. And please give our group a little credit. We have become ever-so-skillful at weeding out those sources that do not provide this knowledge. I repeat...You have NOT failed us.
- Andrew Smith
I appreciate what you are saying, and am glad that others share the same opinion as myself. What happened to being the guys who always had some tech trick that seemed like magic to the uninitiated? The joy of tech for me is showing that magic to others and getting them interested in what's out there too, and lately we have all become business whores a little bit. I look forward to the future content coming from you, and getting back to what made tech cool in the first place, the tech itself.
- Aaron Krug
One of the things I value most about Robert is his inner homing mechanism. He's very prone to get lost, but something always shakes him loose and he re-calibrates. Or is that re-boots? (Kind of like iPhone 2.0 now that I think about it.)
- Michael Markman
I agree w/ your article, Robert. The wonder that makes so many of us interested in tech does get lost at times- I never saw tech blogs as the place for that stuff, but appreciated it when I found it there.
- anna sauce
Alex: While scaling is necessary if you want more people to view your content, why should that come at the cost of the content itself? Too many startups are trying to replace a solid marketing plan with social media and end up trying to use big blogs as a means to advertise their product and ride the traffic tail to customers. From what I gather, this tends to make jaded bloggers who...
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- Derick Valadao
I kinda find this funny.. the comments are so distributed between FF channel and Scobles blog channel ? which one am I too follow ? I mean yesterday we had this big huge augments about cluster and fragmentation of conversations. So Robert, here's a suggestion. Turn off comments on your blog and let your readers comment on FF only. Else dont post your blog entry to FF and break your own...
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- Peter Dawson
I just approved a bunch of comments that were held in moderation. Now there's 88 comments over there. Whew.
- Robert Scoble
melmcbride: good point. It's easy to just stay on FriendFeed all day. It's hard to come up with something new to say that takes more than a short paragraph. Damn, I'm sounding so old school. The neat thing is when I do a longer blog is comes in here and improves everything.
- Robert Scoble
i think this is part of the echo chamber that is the silicon valley. people who live there use the "new" thing for so long they soon get sick of doing it. they are same people who think everyone elses use technology the same way they do and feels the same way they do.
- Jonathan Jesse
Scoble steps out of the bubble and takes a breath of fresh air... hopefully more follow or we're going nowhere fast.
- Harish V
I thought this was great! Robert, I think what I hear is your desire to just do whatever the hell you want to without regard to "The Man". Go for it. You of all people can do that!
- Elliott Ng
Robert the real issues is that everything really only needs to exist once. Conversations don't neeed to exist in many different places. Your blog comments and the conversation here are all the same conversation. I'd love to explain the solution as i see it but it'd take too long.
- Anton Mannering
Robert I am still lost- How can you profess to be be a convo aggregator , yet approve 88 comments on your blog ? @Anton, no Blog comments and these comments on FF, are two different sets of conversation happening on the same topic. Lets not confuse this fact !! There is a fork in the convosphere.
- Peter Dawson
@ Anton: I sort of agree with you, but i don't think comment fragmentation is all bad. Sometimes well-written comments appearing somewhere else can draw attention to good ideas. If I don't subscribe to a particular blog but see the feed posted here on FF, I'll pick it up and then maybe I'll go straight to the blog. There's value in fragmentation along with the frustration.
- phil baumann
I think a service like disqus should be used so that friendfeed comments on links to blog posts (with comments therein) will all show up no matter which medium you use to discuss them. Does this exist yet? I thought disqus would have this covered by now.
- Derick Valadao
Great points as always Robert. We're with you on this.
- Missionary Broadcasting
Peter: I approved about 40 that were being held in a moderation queue. I don't let newbies post a comment on my blog because then it'd be overrun with spam. FriendFeed has a much better system to protect against spam than my blog's comments. I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL, return it to my blog, and get it linked in, all really quickly.
- Robert Scoble
I haven't read the comments here, but feel I can comment. Robert, as someone who as known you for five years now - just before the mania began - I am pleased to hear this. What got me into your blog in the first place was your ENTHUSIASM for technology, particularly GTD. Never let that go. You be you. I will be me. And everyone else will be everyone else. In the end, you gotta follow what you love. It works for everyone from Steve Jobs to the Pope. Your friend online and off - SR
- Steve Rubel
@ phil bauman Ok 2 things. First of all I didn't say it shouldn't appear in many places. I'm saying that if you're in Roberts comments and I'm on Friendfeed then we should be able to see ALL the conversation from both. But it need not exist in a whole bunch of places only be visible from there. Second I think the argument that there is value in fragmentation is similar to saying there is value in using a ploughshare pulled by an ox. Ther is but not to most people.
- Anton Mannering
@ Robert Scoble: Interesting you should mention your blog comments being friendfeed. I know a startup or two working on those problems. In reality though the issues become way bigger when such a service is subject to really large numbers (non-tech crowd). Solving those problems is where the fun and games are and I only know one startup with a real solution for that.
- Anton Mannering
Ironic, isn't it--the influences (PR, marketing, big media) the original bloggers were trying to break away from are--surprise-- still here and the game hasn't changed as much as we thought. PR people still push their stories, tech and news blogs focus on a few big name co's and start looking like traditional media, etc. What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm and original thought that Scoble and others brought to the game earlier on--otherwise, we've only duplicated the old media on a new platform.
- mark ivey
I send you a tweet also but I believe that I must also write here how spot-on was your post... I can't wait to see more real Tech news coming from you and I hope that this will force other bloggers to remember how they started back then...
- Manos Matsakis
This is clearly your best post ever. Thank you for all of your hard work. I read your blog because it entertains me. I would love more posts "sharing geeky things." On the other hand, if you blog about news, technology, and a few pro-company biases, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you (or any other blogger) do not provide a perfect balanced news experience does not mean that you have failed. People are responsible for finding their own news this day in age.
- Brian Wilson
Great post and I totally agree. "What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm..."
- Eric_T
Great stuff Robert. As blogging and social media continues to spread outside of tech and into other niche industries and verticals, those of us facilitating and evangelizing that spread should continue to look back at this post so history isn't repeated. See you at the Ritz tonight.
- J.J. Toothman
"I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL" - yeah I second that motion. If I had a widget that could do that but with bi- directional flow , that would really be a convo aggregator. This will certainly be an interesting challenge to some of the geeks out here !
- Peter Dawson
You can, if you're willing to give up the content. Glenn developed a great plugin that allows for bi-directional flow. It works for Wordpress and (I think) Blogger http://blog.slaven.net.au/wordpre...
- Steve Spalding
Great timing :) I got strange looks this weekend when I said that I don't review anything that has been 'pitched' to me - but rather things I discover that I think are cool. I discovered something this weekend at BlogHer that I will review. But no one sent me a press release. :) It's just a really neat gadget!
- Lucretia Pruitt
I think you should watch the movie 'Resurrecting the Champ' - its about a Writer. Drew the analogy to your post and the movie (that I just happened to see yesterday) http://mrinal.vox.com/library...
- Mrinal Desai
Enjoyed that rant, Robert. I'm not a tech geek, I don't read techmeme or techcrunch as the gist and trends can be followed here on FF, but I do read blogs like yours, Louis, Jeremiah and Hutch's, mainly to learn new things. Before FF I had never heard of Rescue Time, Jott, Evernote or TSheets for example, but hearing about new ideas and then experimenting with them myself, well that gets me interested and excited. The corporate enterprise stuff leaves me cold, it isn't nifty or flexible enough for users.
- Sally Church
Nice post. The PR influence bit reminded me of this article by Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/submari.... Agree to the fact that Tech blogging has been less 'tech' than it was a couple of years ago.
- Nikhil Dandekar
I loved the rant earlier yesterday, and even more impressed by the ff reaction. My take on your blogging, having followed you since MS days. Stay on what you think, not what others think. Avoid the whole Gillmor Gang bs, and associated groupthink.
- Bankwatch
I think that every new medium matures as it becomes possible to make real money at it - this is inevitable. I don;t think it will be the death of blogging certainly but we are in a new phase. Older blogs will mature and still keep that flavor or they will stagnate and die. The personalities will decide that. One of the things I like about your work Robert is the enthusiasm. Sometimes it makes you a bit naive, others it makes you a little to fast to declare something game changing but it is always good input
- Soulhuntre
Robert, just read your wonderful post now, and I'm still fascinated by it. I'm commenting here because I know you'll read here first. You know, this competition that you were taking about, almost cause me to stop blogging, but then I realized that I'm writing because I like it, so as far as I'm concern, I'm not trying to compete anyone, this is why I'm taking things easy and on my own...
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- Orli Yakuel
Orli: you know me too well! :-) Yup, agreed. Just do it because it's fun. The problem is that posts that make us all smarter don't stick around very long because of the flow.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, maybe it's because 'blogs' are not so unique anymore. Lets take Friednfeed for example: everyone can get noticed here just because they favorite picture on Flickr or dugg story on digg (regardless if they writing a blog, or giving any other opinion in the subject) this and other massive content mixed up together on a daily basis is flowing so fast, it almost seem that if you'll...
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- Orli Yakuel
AT&T's Free Wi-Fi Hotspot Access for iPhones Finally Announced? - http://www.macrumors.com/2008...
Carla Thompson, Corie, Sean Oliver and 2 other people liked this
it was about time
- Christian Van Der Henst
Gmail and Google Calendar to Add Offline Support - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008...
Nick Humphries, Patty, H Durer and 5 other people liked this
Twitter is slowly plugging the Fail Whale’s blowhole - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...
Benedikt Koehler, Steve Rubel, Stephen Collins and 25 other people liked this
Twitter appears to be making progress in slaying its white whale
- MG Siegler
I'm not really feelin' the imagery invoked by this title...
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Waiting for countless Moby Dick references. Go.
- Shawn Farner
@rahsheen - agreed. switched it to "Twitter draws closer to harpooning the Fail Whale"
- MG Siegler
i've definitely enjoyed the increased uptime. but they shouldn't even announce progress until we can reliably go back say ten pages into older tweets. I'm also frustrated by the never ending error messages from my twitter clients (twhirl on my pc and twitterific on my mac) saying i've exceeded 70 requests per hour. nevertheless, i am a bit excited that constant downtime may be a thing of the past.
- mike
@mike - yeah i thought it was a bit early to trumpet a success at first too (mission: accomplished anyone?) but then again those are some pretty solid numbers and twitter did kick ass yesterday with its 30 minute maintenance in a two hour window.
- MG Siegler
All they need to do is move their offices to Nantucket.
- Jonathan Beckett
Great title! Twitter does need to stop blowing so badly.
- wrecks
Does this improvement correlate to the addition of Pivotal Labs to the Twitter team?
- AJ Kohn
Tell me that headline is suppose to be ironic:-) What happens when you fill the blowhole on a whale?...think about it
- Duncan Riley
It'll drown?!
- Susan Beebe
Are you addicted to the Internet? I am. Be honest!
Jay Cruz, Sara Maternini, Sarah Perez and 18 other people liked this
I'll soon find out... leaving for a series of trips where I'll have little or no access.
- LogEx
Absolutely not!
- Daniel Smith
Wait, what was that first step again?
- Daniel Smith
Of course. Isn't addiction required at this point?
- Fa La La La Lindsay
yes :) It hasn't impacted my life yet. A component of my job is watching for trends on the internet.
- Tony Haenn
@Tony same with me - it's integrated into my career.
- Steve Rubel
@k I think I saw a psuedo-science article one time that said there is an "endorphin boost" when we access new information or are waiting for it. Hence the constant need to check email, flip through g. reader etc...So in a sense you are addicted to something just like crack or meth :)
- Tony Haenn
I'm here, so I guess so.
- Tom Landini
of course I am! :)
- Luca Mondini
the internet.. no.. World of Warcraft.. yes
- Matt Craven
@Logical I would go ape.
- Steve Rubel
Friendfeed doesn't mean addict in English ?
- Jean-Charles
Hmm... lets see here.. Staying up until 1am catching up on news feeds and/or creating independent media content.... I think I might be. But I can quit any time!
- Mike Wills
@Steve and @Tony...me too...does that make us addicted to work?
- mike
I would feel like I'm cut off from the world if I didn't have *some* connection to e-mail, or Google, or whatever, but I don't think I'm addicted. There are many times (often weekends) where I barely do anything online besides check e-mail... That's why I'm not a very good blogger. :P
- Cheryl Jones
"endorphin boost"? So that explains it. /me quits the internet... but will return when the DTs kick in.
- DeathByNinja
@Mike - YES!
- Steve Rubel
yes, I am :D
- Zahra HB
Yup. But I'm ok with 7 days in the woods with no internet too. I think I'm addicted to breathing, eating, and movement. I asked an ex-girlfriend about her addiction to reading "When was the last time you went a day without reading anything?" .... "Uhhh. Can't remember." ;-) See Julian Baldwin's "addicted to learning" thread http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Mitchell Tsai
Addicted? No. Not at all. I can quit anytime I want.
- Russell Holliman
I'm not (yeah, denial )
- dan
To be honest, I am taking a week hiatus the end of this month. Middle of nowhere... no cell phone, no internet, no radio, no TV. I think I'll die! And catch a lot a fish while doing it.
- Mike Wills
I am yes, a program I want to watch is on and I am here!
- Joe Dawson
Absolutely! My wife despairs when she tells me to put the laptop away when we retire at night, and then I roll over and pick up my hiptop! :-)
- Lee Hopkins
i shuld accept,it because iam too:(
- Neda
Not really addicted. But I feel I'm missing a lot when offline
- Martin Liechti
yes i am :))
- mhmazidi
Hi, my name is Chris an I'm an Internetoholic! Nice to meet you. :)
- Chris Rodgers
not when I am on holiday ;)
- Luca Conti
Nope. The internet is addicted to me.
- Nir Ben Yona
from twhirl
Oh, come one. Anyone who reads your confession can relate. After all, it's on FriendFeed. Does anyone other than Internet addicts even use FF? :-)
- Brent Logan
This must be a rhetorical question
- Sally: baby flier
The Internet.... My life...One in the same it appears to me :)
- Keith Bilous
let's find a word stronger than addicted... :)
- Goktug Gedik
I can survive without it for a while before dying of "noise" thirst.
- Roberto Bonini
pretty much, find it tough to deal without Internet connection for more than a day, possible but feels weared, it's where I communicate mostly, it where I hear the news, where I learn something. It's vital oh ye it helps me make a living as well
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
I've been away from the internet for hours at a stretch. Sometimes days. But usually, it's because I'm participating in other activities even more addictive than the internet.
- Morton Fox
I'm not addicted to the Internet. It's not like I've been browsing FriendFeed constantly. I take a 30 second break every hour so nobody can say that I spent the whole hour on the Internet. :D
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
from NoiseRiver
I want to marry FF and have half FAIL WHALE babies.. addicted? Never.
- Mona Nomura
I guess I am if I'm upset that I missed this for the past 2 hours. ;)
- Kevin C. Tofel
I'm glad that Internet keeps me away from my other addiction: reading books. You know, from reading books you get those tiny, tired eyes, your elbows are getting sore from holding up the book and at a certain moment you don't know how the hell you got to move your body because of stiffness. Well with Internet, after all those hours... Well, I feel the same, but happy. ;-)
- Ton Zijp
Of course.
- Steve Isaacs
Yes. Hopelessly.
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
ur all doin it wrong. it's called the internets.
- Hao Chen
fo sho
- Geoff K
I have a healthy addiction.
- Jay Cruz
Tesla confirms Model S sedan, 225-mile range and $60k - http://feeds.autoblog.com/~r...
Brian Daniel Eisenberg, mjc, wrecks and 19 other people liked this
Now we're talking. Not that I want to drop 60k on a car, but at least it would seat my kids.
- Bradley McSpinn
from twhirl
gonna need something before this is out but when it is can seriously see getting this
- Shannon Clark
awesome, I too will be in the market soon
- Ryan
The Tesla was really cool when I saw one in Los Angeles at the car show a few months ago. They left the gas cap in the same place, and when you open it, an electric plug is there. It's a hell of lot better looking than all the other electrics. They were sold out for 2008 already though. Get on the waiting lists if you really want one. They are backed up...
- Mitchell Tsai
I'll definitely buy one given the ridiculous fuel price now
- Nestor
Why oh why can't they make a motorcycle?
- Andrew Feinberg
If it was a hybrid, I'd do it. I just don't like the idea of having a range <300 miles.
- xero
Once all-electric cars hit around $40k I'll just barely be able to afford them and I'll buy a couple.
- Chrimmus Tad
would love to have one, do wonder if when sitting in traffic how much electrical use there is? b/t that would change the distance calculations.
- clarke thomas
Clarke, from my understanding, when sitting stopped in traffic the only power the car uses is for brake lights and whatnot. the motor isn't running. Someone "in the know" please correct me if I'm wrong.
- Eddy Cole
Also using the battery for A/C, etc. I bet its range will be severely limited here in AZ in the summer when the AC has to blow on high all the time.
- Chrimmus Tad
You'd think they'd put a better radio and sat nav in the thing for the price.
- xero
who cares about the sat nav and stereo in an all electric car at this stage .. they need to be more worried about getting the range up more then stuff they can put in it to suck the juice out the battery quicker .. 225 is about 4 days worth of driving for me .. not too shabby .. but sitll not sure about the price
- John Blanton
from twhirl
When the car is >$20k it better come with sat nav. If it's >$100k like the coupe, it better come with damn good components, or none at all.
- xero
We really need to make this California High-Speed Rail happen - http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
Ben Kessler, Ashley, Grant and 22 other people liked this
2:20 minutes between SF and LA?!?!?! hell yes!
- Jason Calacanis
from Bookmarklet
dear gawd please
- Erin @queenofspain
same, i think this would be awesome. expensive as fuck but its so needed as these cities become more and more connected... probably need to go all the way to vancouver....
- tommy payne
from Alert Thingy
when we attack LA, I thought our forces were going to use planes
- adam garrett
from twhirl
Yes but will you do it before Indiana does? Seems more obstacles to the process in CA than IN
- Fred Grott
Just do it baby. I traveled from LA to Modesto via Amtrak. It took 5 hrs. Ca needs this project.
- Russellreno
hopefully the elections will bring more people to the polls to vote on this (Proposition 1)
- adam garrett
from twhirl
It would be absolutely fantastic if I could get to L.A. in an hour and a half from Vegas on the Interstate Maglev, then get to SF for lunch and still be home in time for dinner.
- Chris Reed
This was all proposed something like 6-9 years ago and nothing happened. I expect a serious change will have to occur in DC for any of America's infrastructure to ever get back on track. I can't decide if Las Vegas to Anaheim maglev would be a good or bad thing for Disneyland.
- John Frost
@John A good thing..... Don't just think of drunk gamblers going into Disneyland, think Vegas locals with families and kids....
- Chris Reed
@Chris I'm actually more worried about the LA area tourists hopping a train to Sin City instead of Fantasyland
- John Frost
Yesss!!!! Used to cost $25 for me to drive LA-SF roundtrip (5 hrs), and I'd come up to SF for weekends. Now it's $112.
- Mitchell Tsai
@John: There are plenty of people to go around for both, and the idea of both the Strip and Disneyland on the same day could be enticing.... Disneyland for kids, then Disneyland for grownups...
- Chris Reed
It would be sooo much faster, pleasant and fuel efficient.
- wrecks
I wonder if they found the missing LOLCAT? http://www.flickr.com/photos...
Adam Turetzky, Michael Garrison, Baard @ Pixum and 57 other people liked this
You need to have a conceptual knowledge of DiSo to code for Gnip http://www.gnipcentral.com/jobs.... Nice one :)
Alessio, TweetCrunch, Lukas Lehmann and 55 other people liked this
Not a complete list of top diggers - http://digganalytics.com/
Nikpay, Steaprok, Hao Chen and 39 other people liked this
I think it's supposed to be a list of the active ones.
- Muhammad Saleem
Wow theres a lot..
- Ivan Stegic
Wow theres a lot..
- Andrew Shuttleworth
Wow theres a lot..
- Robert Sanzalone
Wow theres a lot..
- Benjamin Kohler
Wow theres a lot..
- Roy Montero
Wow theres a lot..
- nozaki
Wow theres a lot..
- Orli Yakuel
Wow theres a lot..
- Dennis Jackson
Wow theres a lot..
- Ron Shoshani
Wow theres a lot..
- Niv
Wow theres a lot..
- Alessandro
Wow theres a lot..
- Noah David Simon
Wow theres a lot..
- Jon Dillon
Wow theres a lot..
- Rahul Das
Wow theres a lot..
- Chrimmus Tad
Wow theres a lot. ...a lot of a lot ... the likely cause was the other day when what's his name pointed his Nokia at his monitor, giving an infinite picture-in-picture of the stream he was running on qik
- Dan Covington
Wow theres a lot..
- Guy
Wow theres a lot..
- Oldengrey (Jay)
Wow theres a lot..
- Annalisa
Wow theres a lot..
- Stephen Winkler
Wow theres a lot..
- Jigar Mehta
Wow theres a lot..
- Sylvester Becker
Wow theres a lot..
- Sarah Perez
Wow theres a lot..
- Sergio
Wow theres a lot..
- laleh
Wow theres a lot..
- Nir Ben Yona
Wow theres a lot..
- darialalala
Wow theres a lot..
- Sam Chong
Wow theres a lot..
- Bwana ☠
wtf???
- Dieter Schwarz
All: an API client malfunctioned or intentionally spammed with these comments. We disabled that API client to prevent the problem, and we are reaching out to the developer.
- Bret Taylor
that's bizzare
- Sarah Perez
hahah I thought it was a mass joke about overlap and echo-chambering at digg. Oh well. *frowns*
- Steve Isaacs
:-)
- Mitchell Tsai
Twitter's weakening pulse - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13...
Fred Neil, Rex Hammock, Brian Sullivan and 20 other people liked this
A nicely balanced piece. My crystal ball is notoriously crappy, but I like the Twitter interface. But I'm trying to adapt.
- Mike McCallister
from NoiseRiver
I like the twitter interface as well, I wonder if we should invest in using the FF api to create a twitter-like interface
- Steve Eichert
It's already been outdone by this site in terms of usefulness for the average person.
- Jacob
13 FriendFeed Tools for Twitter Refugees - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008...
 |
Michael Connick, Mike McCallister, alfred westerveld and 83 other people liked this
"There has been much talk of Twitter users moving over to FriendFeed since Twitter replies were down for the majority of last week. Twitter announced that they were back on Saturday in their blog, but seeing as the outage may have inspired some users to flock to FriendFeed, I decided to take a look at the 3rd-party applications and scripts that enhance the FriendFeed functionality. For those of you moving on to FriendFeed’s greener pastures, here are 13 essential tools for an organized, “noise”-free experience."
- Russellreno
from Bookmarklet
I'm waiting for my gridjit invite.
- Russellreno
I thought about making NoiseRiver a closed alpha (by invites) actually. But then told to myself: to hell with hesitation, let's make it and face bugs together! ;-)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Directeur: Have you check you inbox for all your new followers lately?
- Russellreno
Congrats on all the great press!
- Patrick Lightbody
@Russellreno : ouch! It's full! I'm subscribing to many of them, maybe I'm skipping some but I'll definitely see that again :)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Thanks Patrick! Actually without the great feedback from you folks that wouldn't happen... The first 20 minutes of the launch were really HOT :)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
D: BTW there is a GM script that will help you subscribe. Google "Better Friendfeed Subscribe to me". After you load it you go into your "People who scribe to me" tab. It adds a superscribe button.
- Russellreno
Thanks for the info Russellreno! I'll download it now :)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Entire Oracle Berkeley DB family gets a refresh - and all now cert with Oracle VM! http://snurl.com/2rspj
wrecks liked this
friendfeed is getting very close to being usable
Jay Cuthrell, Jan Cifra, Raphael, Raphael and 41 other people liked this
Just needs an edible crow feature first.
- Mark Trapp
heh.
- Thomas Hawk
I'm sure some can jscript that up for him ;)
- Michael W. May
from twhirl
I hear jerked crow is good. Notice how this was worded that FriendFeed changed something.
- Bwana ☠
oooh looks who's taking in the FriendFeed koolaid now :*)
- Susan Beebe
totally
- loren feldman
twitter must be freaking you out to say such words
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
I knew this day was coming. Though its come about 2 months earlier than expected
- Jamie
I said it before, the longer IM/Track is down, the easier it is to forget why you loved it.
- Bwana ☠
Just needs a bloody mobile interface!
- Prolific Programmer
PP: http://fftogo.com
- Mark Trapp
Hmm... Maybe I should check this FriendFeed out since it's almost usable. Oh, wait a second...
- Kevin C. Tofel
Friendfeed in Twhirl is still far from usable for me Steve - The way it keeps popping up items with new comments is annoying - pure flow is much, much better
- Chris Saad
from twhirl
Possibly, Steve meant that as the number of users grow, the service becomes more usable.
- Dan Sleezer
I wonder how long it will take for Steven to use the GillmorGang room http://friendfeed.com/rooms... here on FriendFeed?
- Susan Beebe
@Dan he can spin it that way, sure ;)
- Michael W. May
from twhirl
"FriendFeed is a parasite service built on the back of Twitter. Let’s get this straight. No Twitter, no FriendFeed. Want to kill FriendFeed, as I certainly do? Cut off its oxygen. Take a page from Facebook’s incompetent UnFriend Connect gambit and refuse to pass Twitter posts through non-compliant ex-Google engineering scams." Steve Gillmor, May 24, 2008.
- Thomas Hawk
wow, what a quote...thanks for sharing Thomas! ouch
- Susan Beebe
yeah its growing on me as well
- Fred Grott
Even though it is about two comments up, I'd like to reiterate the point made by Thomas Hawk: "FriendFeed is a parasite service built on the back of Twitter. Let’s get this straight. No Twitter, no FriendFeed. Want to kill FriendFeed, as I certainly do? Cut off its oxygen. Take a page from Facebook’s incompetent UnFriend Connect gambit and refuse to pass Twitter posts through non-compliant ex-Google engineering scams." Steve Gillmor, May 24, 2008.
- Dan Kaplan
Thomas Hawk might be wrong see FF share butttn at top of FF page..ever use it?
- Fred Grott
Richard: I only reposted for comedic effect, like those moments on the Daily Show when they cut between a politician saying something that totally contradicts something they said in the past and then do it again
- Dan Kaplan
I hid twitter updates for a few days. Didn't miss a whole lot.
- Kevin L
Dan, I was quoting Steve, not expressing my own thoughts on FF. Richard. This is not something Gillmor said "months" ago, it's something that he wrote 34 days ago.
- Thomas Hawk
FF works fine for me, every day. And it's better than Twitter or Plurk. FF is an aggregator, not a parasite.
- Bill Sodeman
from fftogo
In fact I might hide it again, just because it is mostly just @ replies and links to content that is already on friendfeed. Wish there was a better way to filter, perhaps by minimum number of comments/likes, or an intelligent filter that knows when something is a duplicate.
- Kevin L
See, you have 33 replies on FF, isn't it more engaging?!
- Shivanand Velmurugan
Like Peanut butter on lettuce, during the Weimar Republic
- Duncan Riley
@ Scott some of us find him an interesting voice to listen to.
- Jamie
@Thomas Hawk: Ha. 34 days is the new 34 weeks. You didnt know that?
- ※Fu※
give in to the dark side gillmor
- Tyler Gillies
Gillmor speaks truth.
- Raphael, Raphael
You can't use Qik in the Oval Office but you can Twitter. How do I know that? Because today Congressman John Culberson met with the President and he said the Secret Service wouldn't let him do live video but he did Twitter from there.
David Almacy, Chris Garrett, Jay and 92 other people liked this
What's Congressman Culberson's Twitter name?
- Chris Rodgers
Oddly enough, xSk8rB0i899x
- Mark Trapp
thats a security breach - but trust me the NSA is tracking that twit !! :)-
- Peter Dawson
Now if they'll just stop planning our foreign policy in 140 character tweets, all will be well.
- Chris Baskind
Heh, the Senator told me that limiting politicians to 140 characters is a good thing.
- Robert Scoble
@johnculberson - http://twitter.com/johncul...
- Kirk Kittell
Chris, his twitter name is @johnculberson
- Jason Shultz
@Mark quality response!!
- Joe Dawson
Why do I find it hard to believe that the president who touts using "the Google" and the "Internets" uses Twitter? Lord knows, McCain has yet to master Windows solitaire.
- Chris Reed
Thanks for the Twitter link. It will be really interesting to follow a politician on Twitter.
- Chris Rodgers
I wonder if Obama will tweet from the Oval Office
- Mike Hussein Cohen
Robert: I recant. 140 characters might be just the thing. ;-)
- Chris Baskind
unfortunately you can't take pictures inside the West Wing either - WH press room is ok, Rose Garden is ok but not in
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Following. - Holy moly, he just followed me back (probably auto...).
- Vince DeGeorge
Picture the monkey in office Twittering launch codes... "Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try to invade Iran again".
- Andrew Smith
I follow him also - Twitter name - #johnculberson
- Craig Thomler
Commenting here so I remember to add him as an imaginary friend later (since I can't do that on FFToGo)
- Chrimmus Tad
from fftogo
Culberson was by far the best conversation of the day. He clearly loves his job and wants new technology to do it better, even if he has to learn. Amazing, amazing guy. Can't wait for his Town Hall tomorrow!
- Andrew Feinberg
wow, you guys had FUN!! so jealous... twitter in the white house holy cow! McCain is soo screwed!
- Susan Beebe
So Scoble is the Maxwell Smart of tech?
- Mark Forman
surprised they didn't just put a jammer on the the area
- clarke thomas
I'm sure we'll be able to sum up all the positive things the Bush administration accomplished in less than 140 characters.
- Kevin Shannon
About to find the John Culberson Twitter account now. Wonder what he's saying about the Scoble effect. :)
- Ontario Emperor
from fftogo
very cool -- like what i see... following Culberson now.
- Andy Sternberg
+1 Kevin Shannon.
- Mohamed J
very interesting to see that Culberson also follows you back- almost immediately unlike some of the other politicos mentioned in yesterday's blog post.
- Nathan Eckenrode
John Culbertson followed me back immediately and then we even tweeted. I am still unsure about the other two mentioned. I can't seem to find the rep from OH and the rep from AZ (I think) his tweets have the feel of a staffer. Bears another look today though. By far the best thread yesterday!
- Mathew A. Koeneker
I had a back and forth with Congressman Culberson last night on gas prices on Twitter; pretty amazing, really.
- Lee Stranahan
from Alert Thingy
I got an immediate followback as well-- Lee, great to hear he is genuinely on the service.
- Doug Haslam
from twhirl
Rep. Culberson and I don't agree politically, but it was civil and it was a real conversation - a couple of people DMd me and said 'wow! this is cool!'. Tim Ryan is a Congressman, also on Twitter - but he follows nobody.
- Lee Stranahan
from Alert Thingy
I disagree with just about all of his politics, but I love his twitter gumption. :) Go Culbertson!
- Jarrod Morgenstern
Scoblizing The White House?:)
- Igor Poltavskiy
iPhone capable of doing live video streaming today - no jailbreak required! - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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don loeb, Tom, wrecks and 12 other people liked this
this made me sad damn!! eh, i still like my iphone
- Chris Harris
it's real weird they didnt add it to the new model... i guess they're keeping it for 3rdparty apps and next years wwdc, im sure Job's will make me feel like i just discovered video and it was all their idea :P (and ill love it)
- Ruben Llibre
I was all excited... Do we really need to have these "mine's bigger than yours" arguments?
- Ben Vaughan
from twhirl
amazing technology breakthrough!!
- Dieter Schwarz
How much for the rubber band? I don't see it listed on the Apple iPhone Accessories page for some reason. ;)
- Kevin C. Tofel
Literally laughed out loud at work. Was super excited then when it flipped over, just burst out laughing.
- Johan
Qik did announce they would support the iPhone. So did FlixWagon.
- wrecks
....and....Drunknbass, probably a few others. Still funny for a few weeks though.
- Tom
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