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Horst Gutmann › Likes
What do you talk about at BarCamps http://sandiego.metblogs.com/2009... read! #marketing is BORING!
Horst Gutmann liked this
So wahr. Irgendwie werden die ganzen Marketing-Talks echt langweilig :-) Ist vermutlich auch einer der Gründe, warum Zeugs wie CupcakeCamps so gut besucht sind ;-)
- Horst Gutmann
Nicht vergessen, diesen Sa. 27. Juni #Photowalk in Villach. http://www.photowalk.at/2009...
Horst Gutmann liked this
Ever Downloaded a Copyrighted Song? You Owe Infinity Dollars - http://mashable.com/2009...
Kol Tregaskes, Bruno C. Vellutini, Miguel Caetano and 5 other people liked this
If you're going to steal, probably better perform an actual robbery...or else.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
how a jury can bring something like this down on a private person is totally beyond me ...
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
LOVE the title of this post! Frankly, I think the true crime is the amount the RIAA is getting!
- faryl
so ridiculous. the law is an ass in the States
- Phil Wain
read it in the local newspaper this morning - that's frightening if you have kids with internet access
- schilke
We started including FriendFeed subscriber counts when we crawl your blog's feed - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
Amarnath Prabhakar, HealingBrush, Ruben Sanchez and 175 other people liked this
This means that, if you use a service FeedBurner, your subscriber totals will include FriendFeed subscribers in addition to subscriber counts from Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. For a lot of people like me, this will be a pretty significant boost in your overall subscriber numbers.
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
This is great! Thanks!
- Stephen Mack
Not sure why it is called "friendfeedagg" right now :) We will ask them to make the name a bit friendlier, but the stats are there nonetheless.
- Bret Taylor
What service did Kevin use to make that pie chart in the example?
- Stephen Mack
Thanks again to the FeedBurner team for working with us on this one - they were incredibly responsive and great to work with.
- Bret Taylor
Stephen: the chart comes from FeedBurner ( http://feedburner.google.com/fb...)
- Bret Taylor
from email
Very interesting !
- Farzad
Great!
- انجل
You can add your blog to your FriendFeed profile (if it isn't already there) at http://friendfeed.com/setting...
- Bret Taylor
not sure if i like it...
- zio bonino
There is a problem. My followers on FriendFeed follow all my feeds, not only my blog. So the "attention focus" is different between one user that follows directly my blog via RSS and an user that follows all about me. Two different counts in the main page of FeedBurner, RSS and FF, would be great.
- Alessandro Di Nicola
and for the reach stats? it's crawled?
- Felter Roberto
I'm not sure this was the right thing to do. Yes, there are 200 people subscribed to me on friendfeed, and my blog entries fly by in their feed. But from the Google Analytics stats, there are essentially no referrals from friendfeed to actually read the blog posts. Someone who subscribes to the blog RSS feed can be said to have an intent to actually read the blog, A subscriber on friendfeed doesn't necessarily have such an intent.
- DGentry
Unfortunately I suspect we'll see a TechCrunch article soon about "How To Inflate Your Subscriber Numbers Using friendfeed.com!" Edit: like the one they wrote about netvibes http://www.techcrunch.com/2008...
- DGentry
I agree with DGentry and Alessandro, this may not be a good idea. The problem could occur when Twitter and Facebook start reporting subscribers in the same way. This could start a very bad trend.
- Rob Diana
Hmm, I'm not sure if I like that. It surely inflates the subscriber-stats for the Feedburner-Feeds.
- Marcel Weiß
I think this is a disaster for feedburner. I publish a full feed from my blog so subscribers get the same content they would have if they visited the site. I can lump that into traffic as if they were a site visitor. But friendfeed merely publishes a headline so those friend feed subscribers have a very different experience than the ordinary RSS or email subscribers. In looking at recent traffic, only 10 referrals out of 7,000 came from friendfeed.
- Doug Cornelius
I agree - I am not loving this for my feedburner stats, seems not quite right. To me it seems like FF subs are subscribing less to my blog feed and more to me and my general commentary/presence on FF. It seems a little inflationary for rss sub numbers. I prefer to keep them separate, rss subs and ff subs.
- felix
but feedburner shown who "WANT" read our feed o who CAN read it? i think the second. And now it's the same. :)
- Felter Roberto
I'm awaiting Louis Gray's opinion. I think he had 8,500 RSS subscribers before, and now has 13,814. Which is the more accurate representation of the number of regular readers of louisgray.com ?
- DGentry
perhaps is better crawl blog's feed really show in FF. If i go out and my pc in off all the day, my google reader don't read any feed e my ff don't show me any message, Feedburner count me for FF and don't for google reader. And tomorrow, when i turn on my pc, my google reader download all the feed and i can read also the post of the day before, but FF show me only the last message and i lose all of the post.
- Felter Roberto
Whoa, awesome!! FriendFeed rocks! :) My new blog at http://susanbeebe.com now has a huge potential for additional subscribers due to this great new feature FF just added, THANK YOU! :)
- Susan Beebe
Wow my subscribers just jumped up 3000%
- Ralph Whitbeck
What's done can not be theoretically undone - so if this is the way it is, it should stay, or our one-time blips will look odd, won't they? DGentry, I don't know if I am in love with it. I think Rob is right in terms of it rendering the number meaningless. I've been excited to see my numbers go from 5,000 to 8,000 naturally (I guess) in the last two months. This means I can't celebrate that jump.
- Louis Gray
Doug said: "But friendfeed merely publishes a headline so those friend feed subscribers have a very different experience than the ordinary RSS or email subscribers." A lot of people use Google Reader in list view, which is *almost* the same thing as just seeing a title. There's no way to differentiate between those subscribers and ones which see the full content. Or subscribers that choose to mark all your items as read or just ignore them without even looking at the titles.
- Tony Ruscoe
For Louis, I guess the saving grace here is that you can see the breakdown in FeedBurner and choose to ignore FriendFeed if you wish. That means you can still watch your "normal" subscriber numbers climb and celebrate hitting 8,000 subscribers naturally. (You just can't share that number in a chicklet...)
- Tony Ruscoe
Tony: agreed these issues already exist for RSS subscription counts, and for web based readers such as gReader users could be counted even if completely inactive
- Mike Chelen
If someone subscribes to me on FriendFeed but also subscribes via other means - are those deduped or do they essentially get counted twice?
- AJ Kohn
AJ, I assume yes.
- Louis Gray
They get double counted, naturally.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
What if more than one user has the same feed, like Philipp and I do for the Google Blogoscoped blog feed? Does that add together both of our subscriber totals? And does it include all the subscribers for all the groups where it's been added too? (Cross-posted from http://ff.im/47QNJ.)
- Tony Ruscoe
One clear flaw of this is that my wife's blog at http://www.thegrayeffect.com, says it now has more than 9,300 readers, up from 50 yesterday. That's clearly wrong.
- Louis Gray
This is very bad! Of course I'd like higher numbers of RSS subscribers but this is a fake number. Please consider this again...
- Marko Saric
Louis I think thats the general problem: when someone subscribes to you on ff, are they also a subscriber to you on every one of the services you import? You import thegrayeffect.com as an RSS feed, and you have 9270 subscribers here, therefore thegreyeffect.com has 9270 new readers. More broadly, does a subscriber to the aggregate feed also count as a subscriber to every individual component of that feed? Or is the sum greater than the individual parts?
- DGentry
I saw a huge jump in subscribers today. I thought that Feedburner was broken. This explains it.
- Gary
Tony and Louis, the multi-author blog is one of those feeds that causes problems. I did not like this to start, and I am beginning to think I like it even less.
- Rob Diana
I hope Twitter and others don't get the same idea...
- Marko Saric
Hummm. As much as I like the idea, it seems destined to provide incentive for people to beg for subscribers here on FriendFeed which is exactly the behavior that I seek to avoid, and has been generally devoid on FriendFeed to date. It rewards FriendFeed usage and - as such - helps FriendFeed grow but ... is it the *right* growth?
- AJ Kohn
OK. Now I understood why my Feedburner count was inflated. I think, this is not a right thing to do.
- Krishnamoorthy
I actually REALLY dislike this A LOT. My subscriber count was a great measuring stick for me and also a solid indication of how many people -might- actually be reading my content. The vast majority of my subscribers here aren't reading my blog. It's very misleading and makes the RSS subscriber count a lot more meaningless to me.
- Ryan Stephens
Rob, one of the oddities here is that FriendFeed shows more than 9,000 adds to TheGrayEffect, but only about 5,000 to louisgray.com. That may be due to deduplication, but it is certainly odd.
- Louis Gray
howtomakemyblog: Twitter and Friendfeed are in this regard completely different services and I therefor don't see any way in which Twitter could do something like this. But Jaiku might do it.
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
I'm wondering, though: are people who hide the blog feed substracted from the number of subscribers?
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
The easy fix is to disconnect my blog feed from FriendFeed. Otherwise the subscriber numbers are useless. --- So I did. That seems like a bad result for FriendFeed.
- Doug Cornelius
Wow Doug, you chose Feedburner stat purity over FF conversations? That's pretty surprising to me. I suppose you can always tweet your posts into FF if you really want 'em to show up.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I just deleted my blog feed from FriendFeed... it's a stupid change really... fake, inflated numbers... it's much easier to get a FriendFeed subscriber than a real RSS subscriber. And also a real RSS subscriber is much more likely to take a look at your article than a FriendFeed one.... spammers that want to boost their RSS subscriber numbers will love this though!
- Marko Saric
I can't help but notice that Marko and Doug have 350ish FF comments each. I suppose that shades your perception of this change in a different way than it might for someone who - like me - has orders of magnitude more FF comments than blog posts.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel, the fact that they have a smaller comment count should be concerning to FriendFeed because those are the users they need to keep. People like myself and more active users are not going anywhere.
- Rob Diana
HAHAH - now i see what happened - i don't use my feedburner feed here for CN - but for my other sites I do - so now I see I got about 2,000-2,500 bump for those feeds today - yea, like 2,500 people coming to insidetransit every day - i wish! as Rob says, these numbers are meaningless and shouldn't be reported this way. just like the other "defaults" on some of the other services like google reader. mystery solved.
- Allen Stern
Oh yeah I'm not saying FF should keep the feature as is - it's misleading at best - just that I was surprised that anyone values their Feedburner count over their FF stream's purity.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
So who's really at fault here? FF for taking advantage of Feedburner's poor implementation of subscriber counts or Feedburner for offering the possibility?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Do you think FriendFeed had any idea there would be this many people talking about it?
- Rob Diana
So is it better to turn it off altogether or to make it a toggleable feature that users can choose to use or abuse at their discretion?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
@Rob - Who knows what FF expected, but it's really cool to see discussion evolving around this in a live FF thread. People are being mostly civil and constructive and it's all happening right here on the FF thread. I guarantee you FF HQ is reading this and staying hands off for a few hours until they can figure out a solid response.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Instead of deleting your blog feed from FriendFeed, you could just provide FriendFeed with your actual feed URL instead of the FeedBurner one. (I don't think the feed URL actually gets published anywhere by FriendFeed, does it?)
- Tony Ruscoe
daniel - you cant do that - then x blog says "we have y subs" while z blog says "we have a subs" and x gets the ad deal because they have more subs, etc. sadly advertisers and agencies still don't get that the number is meaningless.
- Allen Stern
@Allen - Most of us here aren't directly making money off of subscriber counts, but I appreciate that this would be an issue of great importance to you.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel: No matter how active you are on FriendFeed, if you think a FriendFeed subscriber is just as valuable to your blog as your RSS subscriber, you are fooling yourself. And I am talking about value to your blog as that is what RSS subscriber number represents, not about relationships / conversations etc. you might have wit hyour "subscriber" on FriendFeed...
- Marko Saric
I think my Friendfeed network is more valuable to me than my blog's readership, but I still keep the blog around for the few unique things it can offer me: A well-developed body of work to point to in professional situations, google juice, and a place to share long-form ideas.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
So if I could get Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis and Leo Laporte to add my post-every-six months blog to their feeds, does that mean Feedburner would show I have 100K subscribers?
- Ken Sheppardson
This will definitely be abused by spammers who will use it as an opportunity to inflate their RSS numbers and make their blogs seem more important to potential advertisers, readers, subscribers etc who are unaware of this FriendFeed change.
- Marko Saric
Jason Calacanis To Pay Friendfeed $200,000 For Spot on Suggested Users List
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
+1 Daniel
- Allen Stern
There's no reason Twitter couldn't turn around and do the same thing, right? Heck, they could set up a service to automatically tweet your RSS feed over to Twitter on your behalf, then just add the number of Twitter subscribers you have to their stats. I think this is more a Feedburner fail than a FriendFeed issue.
- Ken Sheppardson
Seems like maybe somebody took all the "Have you ditched Google Reader for FriendFeed" threads the wrong way... hm.
- Ken Sheppardson
What about making this optional per feed?
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
Ken, right now Twitter doesn't request any feeds though. Those numbers get into FeedBurner by FriendFeed providing a subscriber count in the USER_AGENT header when they request the feed.
- Tony Ruscoe
I'm surprised Feedburner agreed to this. Next Twitter will ask that followers on their service count as readership.
- Aviv
Aviv - that presumes that FF and FB had a discussion about this. It reads to me like FB always allowed polling agents to specify a subscriber count via their API and that the FF team just decided to change the way they utilize that feature.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
If someone subscribes to your blog feed using Google Reader, it doesn't mean they read it. Likewise, if someone subscribes to your FriendFeed, they may or may not read your blog posts. Subscriber numbers are all about reach. I see no difference between FriendFeed and Google Reader. Your subscribers see what you're posting and decide whether they want to read it. Using web analytics...
more...
- Tony Ruscoe
tony +1
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
Tony, you're right about RSS subscribers being able to skip over your posts at will but there's still a disctinction to be made between subscribing directly to a blog feed (traditional) versus subscribing to the totality of a person's shared activity (friendfeed). The former implies an explicit interest in the blog, the latter does not. Moreover FF makes it trivial for a user to subscribe to a person and then perma-hide their blog posts if for example you like talking to Louis Gray but not about his blog.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Tony, you have to agree that subscribing on Google Reader means at the very least that right now, at the time of adding that subscription, you have the intention of reading future blog posts. But with FF, I don't think I'm even aware of blogs maintained by 90% of the people I'm subscribed to.
- Aviv
VERY cool.
- Shey
Daniel, Aviv, good points. But I think that by subscribing to a person, you're generally interested in them and what they have to say. Blogs are merely a subset of that person. The big problem for me is that there's no way to verify that you own a blog feed, so (I think) it will inflate your subscribers if it's added to multiple user accounts and groups even without your permission.
- Tony Ruscoe
To put it another way, should anyone in your field care that your mom reads your blog? We all know she's just doing it because she loves you, not because your blog is so gosh darned wonderful. FF subscribers in FB stats are the same thing - people like *you* and while that might carry over to a limited interest in your blog it certainly doesn't imply that many of them have ever read it.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I subscribe to blogs of people I know because of who they are (in addition to blogs which interest me) even if I'm not particularly interested in the subject they write about just in case they write something I like. The fact that I know them and like them as a person often means we've got at least one thing in common. And vice versa. I like reading lots of my FriendFeed subscriptions' blogs but I've never subscribed in Google Reader, so FriendFeed is currently the only way they can see me as a statistic.
- Tony Ruscoe
Fb must count only the number of post link shown on FF, exactly how count how much feed google reader download from the blog. it's different that to use the contact number at all. it's possible? i don't know
- Felter Roberto
from twhirl
Innovative. I don't use FeedBurner on my blog, so not seeing the effect. Still relying on the Google Reader count of subscribers.
- Hutch Carpenter
Yet another great reason for a blogger to invest time in the friendfeed community!
- Garin Kilpatrick
So ... if I convince other people to use my blog as one of their fed items, then I pick up the amount of people who are subscribed to them as well? Or create a new account and put a few different blogs on it and get people to subscribe. Or 'trade' a feed for a feed with others to boost each other's counts? The more I think about this, the more I dislike it.
- AJ Kohn
Hmm nice. Just jumped from about 5 to 148 with tobiasverhoog.com I do think though that friendfeeders may read my feed differently than subscribers via Google Reader or another feedreader.
- TobiasVerhoog.com
Uh, maybe it's because I have not had my coffee but where do I see this shiny chart? Friendfeed? Feedburner?
- Rick Cogley
Rick: you can see it in FeedBurner
- Bret Taylor
from email
Bret: thanks. Yes indeed it's there. :-)
- Rick Cogley
and another thing to add onto what Daniel has been saying: hides. if I have 10 FF subscribers but 3 of them are hiding my blog entries, does it report the subscriber to Feedburner as 10, or 7? if it's the former, then the Feedburner stats become really inflated.
- chrisofspades
also, there's nothing in FriendFeed that stops me from importing someone else's blog, which means I can artificially inflate their Feedburner stats without them even knowing I did it. seems ripe for gaming, to me.
- chrisofspades
Right, Chris. As I have 9,000 potential to add to you, I'll start selling slots for $9k.
- Louis Gray
as enticing as that is Louis, I don't have a blog ;)
- chrisofspades
how does it know to link it to your feedburner?
- Gary
Gary, first of all you need to be using FeedBurner for your blog feed. Each time FF requests your feed, they include the number of subscribers in the user agent string. FeedBurner then uses that number to include in the stats for your feed. (If you don't use FeedBurner, you'll still be able to see the stats in your web logs each time your feed is requested.)
- Tony Ruscoe
from fftogo
If people are being exposed to my blog headlines, no matter if it’s on an RSS reader or FriendFeed, they should be counted as potential audience. At the end of the day, the much more important metric to measure is the actual visits to your blog and how often they visit afer that. I've posted some thoughts about it here http://bit.ly/N0jQc
- Jorge Escobar
So that's what happened....
- Spot us
FriendFeed PyAPI v0.2.0 "All Aboard" released - https://launchpad.net/friendf...
DGentry, Tracy, Michael R. Bernstein and 4 other people liked this
This release marks major improvements and additions to the library. In particular, with the help of Chris Atlee's poster library (slated to become part of the Python standard library), the library now supports image uploads. Additionally, the library now supports FriendFeed's new robust search API. See the CHANGELOG for additional improvements and bugfixes.
- Chris Lasher
from FriendFeed PyAPI
Thanks Chris, this will come in handy.
- Michael R. Bernstein
Is there a description anywhere about the differences between this and FF's own friendfeed.py? http://code.google.com/p...
- Michael R. Bernstein
@Michael Hmm, I guess not *with* the library. I need an FAQ perhaps. However, I did detail this in this blog post: http://igotgenes.blogspot.com/2009...
- Chris Lasher
Thanks Chris, that explains the motivation behind the different stylistic approach.
- Michael R. Bernstein
Why Vim Plugins for IDEs Fail - phly, boy, phly - http://weierophinney.net/matthew...
Horst Gutmann liked this
I need a VIM-mode for Word ;-) It took me a couple of seconds to realize, that navigating in World vim-style results in utter garbage the last time I used word ^_^
- Horst Gutmann
Flickr Founder Calls Nuked User 'A Dick' | Gawker - http://gawker.com/5288759...
TheHenry, Michael Hart, David J. Hinson and 58 other people liked this
Look, I think flickR should be able to control their network and its content however they wish. But this policy is ridiculous and evil (wiping out all user data and not letting them get it back) and they deserve all the negative press that comes with it, especially when they act like dismissive assholes.
- Anthony Citrano
from Bookmarklet
Is he the guy that wrote that hilarious exit letter re: silver mining?
- anna sauce
Same dude anna.
- vijay
god, I love Stuart (finally read post) nice way to stand behind your colleague.
- anna sauce
exactly. : ) Title is misleading.
- vijay
I'm not a fan of Flickr but it's hard for me to summon any outrage on behalf of that dick.
- Chester
Check this out.. last line from Johnson- "Ask Heather to fill you in". lol! Credit to Stewart for showing the level of restraint he did.
- vijay
flickr is a great service but their terms of use and the ways they enforce them makes them much bigger dicks than any justifiably irate user. And I am not trying to compliment them. But it's typical corporate internet arrogance.
- Rick Powell
What a great chance to respond to a CR issue without having to represent the company admirably... given a chance to say what he actually felt, I think Stewart's response was maybe not totally called for, but totally funny and he has the right. Way to back up your former peeps too.
- SAM
Well, whatever. I think Stewart is a dick, but far fewer people will read that than have read and will read his e-mail and will make their own minds up.
- Rick Powell
So, if somebody emailed me to ask me to mediate a problem they were having with my former employer, I suspect that my response would both be ruder and shorter.
- Wirehead
I completely agree Anthony, it is unbelievable and I have a Pro account :-|
- Luca Conti
@Wirehead Well, in that case, you, just like Stewart, would be going out of your way to be a dick yourself. All he really needed to write was the first sentence, or not respond at all. But flickr's policy of deleting a user's photos without warning and without appeal, pretty much sums up corporate assholism for me.
- Rick Powell
My capital rules of staying on the internet: 1. be nice. 2. if you can't be nice, be civil. 3. if you can't be civil, be offline. They served me well in the last 15 years. (and - honestly - I trust Heather's judgement in managing communities a wee bit more than a random guy trolling comment threads, being nuked from existence and throwing a tantrum about it)
- dario
There is usually little difference between a nice person enforcing bad corporate policy and a bad person doing it, except for the style in which it's done. Apologies to "Heather," I'm sure, since I don't know her personally. [insert eye rolls here.]
- Rick Powell
this is why i stopped using flikr. They dont CARE.
- Jim Hague
As somebody who manages online communities for a living, I'm going to have to say that the response here was probably the right one (granted I haven't seen the original threads, and he could have afforded to be a little more civil with his language). Trolls live for this shit. And most of them are dicks.
- mike fabio
Troll is a dismissive word, used ubiquitously and uncritically. It's been MY experience that while there are genuine trolls, the word is not infrequently used to dismiss someone who brings up an uncomfortable political issue. No excuse for being a dick, of course.
- Rick Powell
What concerns me in this issue is that if someone at Yahoo decides that they disagree with something I said or the way I said it, they are willing to completely remove my account. It makes me distrustful of the cloud as a place to store my data. With that said, Yahoo was perfectly within their rights to make this move. It just seems like they don't care to engender confidence in the integrity of the data on their servers.
- Scott Ohlemacher
I have wondered if flickr so easily deletes paying customers photos because they have never provided an easy way for anyone to download all of their collection once it's in the cloud. I guess they think, why would anyone want to do that?
- Rick Powell
@Rick Powell: You're right that there is no excuse for being a dick, but dickery is subjective.
- Scott Ohlemacher
And I think deleting a paying customer's photos, even if he violated terms of service, and not the law, for instance, is simply bad corporate policy. That is really being a dick, in my opinion.
- Rick Powell
Amen, Rick, Amen. Perhaps the real issue was that flickr was afraid of losing the White House photostream?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Wow, just wow. Just goes to show you that money (or talent for that matter) and class don't always go hand in hand.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Finally Flickr's actions as Judge, Jury and Executioner in deleting unwanted members is getting some mainstream coverage due to the political angle. Even if some disagree whether it was the correct forum to air his grievances on the WH's detainee photo policy, it appears to have been measured and civil. Certainly not grounds for a non-appealable deletion. So exactly how does Flickr safeguard our photos (i.e. backups), if deleted members cannot be retrieved? Cloud-computing, or merely dust?
- Nils Sandin
Yeah- seems like a draconian move by Yahoo.
- anna sauce
another Community Manager from a different site chiming in... Flickr was totally within their rights to toast this guy *and* his account. The TOS on any site is not just an agreement between a single user and the company with regard to their own content, but also between the community at large and the company that OTHER users will be subjected to the TOS. This guy was spamming and...
more...
- Edubya
Spam? What exactly was he selling? If I read the accounts right, every American needs to have those pictures shoved under their noses until they wake the frak up. Really, the vagueness in rhetoric that everyone just accepts here is amazing. They were pictures of torture. It was a political protest. Yahoo was certainly within their "rights," although the idea of assigning rights to a corporation makes me queasy, but that doesn't mean I think the world is better off because Yahoo gets to do what it wants.
- Rick Powell
@Edubya They have a right and obligation to uphold their TOS. However, asymmetrical responses like this are not a good way to keep up a good image.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Yeah, this definitely falls under the definition of protected speech in my opinion. Yahoo isn't looking good over this.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
"protected speech"? I don't think the constitution said you were guaranteed the right be able to post on flickr. The constitution doesn't mean everyone has to put up with your shit. A political protest in flickr comments is a pretty lazy freedom fighter anyway. That said, wiping out a paying customers stored images without a warning is really messed up, and it seems like they do that quite frequently.
- Richard Lawler
It may not be constitutionally protected speech in this context, but in another it would be. That should at least make Yahoo pause and handle the situation carefully and diplomatically just to avoid the backlash.
- Scott Ohlemacher
The constitution says that political speech is protected. It doesn't specify forum.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I think that Anthony's first comment here sums up the situation admirably. Flickr did something legal that was morally ambiguous.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Just because speech is protect by the constitution doesn't mean that a private service has to allow unfettered expression of it.
- The original Kevin
No, it's not protected speech but it just points out why we can't trust corporations with our data, with anything. They don't give a shit and they don't have to.
- Rick Powell
Ah, I love it when people speak up to defend the rights of corporations! Give them exemptions to all moral obligations! So encouraging for our democracy. Whether or not they have the legal right is irrelevant if we are talking about ethics. This is, however, the kind of culture we have.
- Rick Powell
A rule against spamming comments != a law prohibiting free speech. How is a corporation morally obligated to put up with spammers, no matter what the content is they're spamming?
- Richard Lawler
This may not hold up to scrutiny, but as a publicly traded company reliant on their image to maintain a user base and therefore profits, don't they have an obligation to shareholders to handle situations like this in the most diplomatic way possible?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Sometimes the truth hurts and hearing it from someone you hope will help you hurts even more. I've seen Johnson's trolling and he deserved this treatment, plain and simple.
- Rene, Pro Button Pusher
Corporations are not morally obligated to do anything. That's the point. That is why they cannot be trusted. Further, I didn't make that equivalency between spam and free speech. You did. Not to mention which the word "spam" is debatable in this case, not least because corporate policies disdain politics, by default, a position which, of course, always favors the powerful.
- Rick Powell
debating whether this is a free speech issue or not is moot. Flickr (or pretty much anywhere else different from your own site) is private property, they have community guidelines which are designed for "the greater good" (which translates nicely to: having the largest number of satisfied users/customers possible). Flickr community guidelines basically boil down to "Behave. If you don't, it may very well be one strike, you're out".
- dario
Rick, not to defend Flickr because I think they've handled this poorly (from a PR point of view if nothing else). But if you sign up to use a service and agree to the TOS, you are voluntarily agreeing to a certain code of conduct. If you violate the TOS, you are subject to the penalties of doing so. Johnson is free to take his protest to another venue. That said, Flickr could be a bit more accommodating and give the guy his images back.
- The original Kevin
and yes, losing your stuff sucks bad, and yes, they probably should implement some sort of "pre-ban" which lets you download your content back on - say - a two weeks notice before the termination of your account.
- dario
Is it an appropriate solution for us to "vote with our eyeballs" and boycott the service until they change some of these policies in a public way?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Peeps, the First Amendment protects you against government action. You have no constitutional right to a flickR account. There's a difference between saying "flickR sucks for doing this" and "flickR has no right to do this." They certainly do have a right to do it, and I have a right to think they're assholes because of it. But I guess that's what I said initially (sorry.)
- Anthony Citrano
@Kevin Have you read the TOS lately? Do you know what NIPSA means? I certainly don't know, after reading it a dozen times. Their TOS is not as arcane, opaque and just plain retarded as ebay's, which must set some sort of record in the history of incomprehensible corporate jargon, but it's not exactly transparent. I think they can ban me if they want. But after accepting my money and...
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- Rick Powell
also, on the "morally reprehensible" issue: this has nothing to do with ethics. Turning over your users' personal data to the chinese government IS unethical, and still, as a publicly shared company, you have to answer to your shareholders first, which might -or might not- be interested in your moral high ground
- dario
@dario What you described is why, in my youth, I believed in economic democracy, which, I think, only the Zapatistas actually advocate now.
- Rick Powell
I think you people are confusing how the flickr software is presently implemented with an arbitrary policy decision. This is common with people who don't know what they are talking about but like to sound like they do. I twittered this on Tuesday... unless you've actually hacked big software that runs on large server farms, STFU about how you'd change how a large website that runs on large server farms would work.
- Wirehead
Oh, I love that one! Technological barriers, the last refuge of the nihilist. Give me a frakin break. This thread has seen it all, right? First-name dropping, specious arguments about the rights of corporations, equating speech with spam, and now claiming the high ground for those who "have hacked big software." I believe I'll have another beer and thank the gods I have never been anywhere near large server farms. Big cow farms, yes.
- Rick Powell
Anthony...I agree. Chalk it up to another Festivus miracle, my friend! lol
- Carlton Hackett
@Wirehead That was needlessly vitriolic. Couldn't be civil and say something like "There are technological limitations related to policy implementation in communities of this size" rather than making assumptions about the skills and experiences of the people in the discussion and then disparaging them? You didn't contribute to this conversation at all, you detracted from it. @everyone else: sorry for feeding the troll.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Dude, I'm just stating an unpleasant truth. But it's very popular amongst people with a little grain of knowledge to assume that they can apply this everywhere. Do I sit here and make suggestions for how cattle ranchers might improve production? No, because I recognize that I don't know a damn thing about cattle ranching and would probably suggest something really stupid.
- Wirehead
On that note, I'm going to go have a beer and watch the hockey game.
- Scott Ohlemacher
@Pat I would guess that a large percentage of the world's dissidents would say that the normal rules don't apply to them, and they would be right, else they would not be dissidents. As for your comment, your rhetoric is precious (alas? a bit sad?) and your argument, if I can call it that, empty. Anyone else?
- Rick Powell
Alex: The constitution defines how government must act. The speech is protected from the government squelching it. No private company is obligated to allow anyone to speak in any way other than the way it wants. Period. The constitution does not give you the right to make the New York Times print anything and everything you want, nor does it give you the right to make flickr do it either.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Most law, and most particularly, the Constitution points back to principles that Dick Cheney, among others, refers to as "quaint," but that doesn't mean they're not valued or have no value, or don't constitute, get that word, the basis for understanding moral behavior. Most citizens understand this. Corporations, unique in history we will eventually realize, are somehow allowed to opt...
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- Rick Powell
Big, scary, god-like (it's a technology, Captain, but none like we've ever seen) server farm or not, I expect backups have to be available. Maybe only for a week (I think that's how long I was told Sprint's picture mail server kept backups), but for some period of time.
- MiniMage, enterRUPPted
See, you are just proving my point, BoringMage. There is a difference between backups and restoring deleted accounts. Given the expected failure rate of disk drives, if flickr didn't keep backups, you'd know. :)
- Wirehead
Flickr could disable the account and prevent harmful activity without deletion of customer data, and that is what they should be doing in these cases. This is more about consumer rights than freedom of speech.
- Mike Chelen
I'm afraid it cannot be "protected speech" if you spam the same comment 10, 20 more times on individual pictures. Then it becomes heckling. These are the flickr terms: "Don’t vent your frustrations, rant, or bore the brains out of other members. Flickr is not a venue for you to harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we’ll...
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- Iphigenie
If they did warn him and he kept spamming, then he deserved what happened. If he didn't back up his own data after being warned and continued doing the same thing, who can he blame?
- Richard Lawler
Jeez, I keep commenting, since so many people find so many creative or not-so-creative ways of avoiding the real points. There is no easy way to back up one's flickr collection, which in some cases involves clicking twice for each photo - which can run into thousands of clicks. If you knew what you were talking about, then you would already know this. flickr's API does not allow...
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- Rick Powell
Yes, we've heard your opinion Rick. That's great. It still doesn't justify the guy's behavior. It doesn't entirely pardon flickr, and I don't think anyone is, but he made his choice.
- Richard Lawler
Well, Richard, if anyone had actually heard my opinion then they would comment as if they understood the contents of my opinion, which you clearly haven't. I have not made justifications about his behavior, mostly because I really don't fully know the extent and content of his behavior. Do you? Perhaps you can fill us all in? It seems clear he was obnoxious, as many people are who want...
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- Rick Powell
Rick, I am not sure about your point - in order to upload to Flickr you need to have the image in the first place, so the assumption is you still have the originals and could re-upload to a new account (I certainly have my images on 2 drives here plus several places online). If you somehow lose the originals you should take copies back out of Flickr immediately, not rely on Flickr (or anything) as your sole copy. PS: have you tried http://www.ghacks.net/2009...
- Iphigenie
Congratulations, Joelle, your life is a lot more stable than mine was. I started uploading to flickr when I was homeless and had no computer of my own. Borrowed cameras, with personal images, and gift memberships from readers of my blog. This year will be the first time I have to decide whether to flip the bird to flickr or pay up. 4 years of connections, not to mention photos. Not an...
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- Rick Powell
Just for the purpose of backup perhaps you can switch the images from private to public (but w. adult warning to avoid people being offended) - run the backup, then change it back? Just circumvent the system temporarily so you have your images at least! I totally agree with you that the feeling that the plug can be pulled under you is an uneasy one, but the cases where flickr has done...
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- Iphigenie
You have totally disarmed me. ;-) I will think about trying that, and any indie, open, distributed options you have would be welcome.
- Rick Powell
I have a lot of thoughts on this as some might expect. May have to break them down into a few posts. I saw this letter from Stewart well before it appeared in Valleywag. It first appeared in the DeleteMe Uncensored group that I admin on Flickr. My first problem with the letter is that I don't think Shepherd should have posted it there or anywhere at all. It was private correspondence...
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- Thomas Hawk
Had Shepherd asked Stewart for permission to post it and Stewart said yes I think that'd probably be ok then. But I don't think Shepherd did that and I don't think Stewart gave permission for it to be published. While I support Shepard's fight against Flickr, I did tell him that I didn't think it was right that he published this email. I know that I personally won't publish emails...
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- Thomas Hawk
Stewart and Heather are friends so I'd think it fair to assume that he'd stick up for Heather in this case without admittedly knowing many of the specific details. I think a lot of us might as our first reaction stick up for our friends. Unfortunately, I think Stewart's response turns this debate more into a personality thing than it should be. I think there are three problems with the way that Flickr handled the Shepherd Johnson case.
- Thomas Hawk
1. Obama campaigned on a platform of transparency in Govt. Deleting critical comments is not transparency. Obama is using social media to enhance his transparency. Deleting critical comments doesn't add much to his credibility in that department. This is not an Obama campaign photostream. It's the official Whitehouse photostream produced by your and my tax dollars. The Obama...
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- Thomas Hawk
2. Shepherd Johnson should not have had his account deleted over the comments that he posted. He linked to a photo (not his but from another photostream as allowed by flickr that was also nuked) depicting detainee prison abuse with a message protesting Obama's support of a new law to suppress additional photos from being released. Of all speech political speech should be given the...
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- Thomas Hawk
3. Flickr should not be deleting *any* accounts permanently and irrevocably. To be so arrogant that they would assume that they will never make a mistake in an account deletion is mind numbing. The fact that they refuse to address this issue and simply dismiss anyone who suggests otherwise is an equally horrible position of arrogance. Instead Flickr should change their policy with...
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- Thomas Hawk
+++ @TH
- Nils Sandin
Scott, this is not just about a Flickr account deletion. According to Shepherd, Heather was not aware of some of the comments that were deleted on the President's stream. The only way those comments could have been deleted (if not by flickr) would have been by Shepherd himself or someone who controls the President's stream. I've personally written to the White House on it and posted a...
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- Thomas Hawk
And there is no political bias on my part in this one. I voted for Obama and support him as my President even if I might not vote for him again. I'm a Democrat who believes strongly that censorship is wrong, even if it's done by a popular Democratic President.
- Thomas Hawk
Political speech does not and should not deserve a wider berth if the guy was breaking the rules. That should be entirely content agnostic.
- Richard Lawler
When are you going to realize that Obama and Bush policy wise are one and the same?
- John Blanton
from twhirl
Richard, the problem with that position is that the "rules" at flickr are very, very subjective. According to Shepherd, Heather told him his account was deleted because he posted a link to a detainee abuse photo and because he was "spamming" flickr, and yet Heather refused to define what "spamming" was and there is definitely no specific rule about not linking to detainee abuse photos....
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- Thomas Hawk
so in Flickr's subjective implementation of their rules? Yes, I do think that political speech should be given a wider berth. Not directly relevant, but U.S. Courts have consistently given political speech a wider berth when dealing with First Amendment issues.
- Thomas Hawk
If you think flickrs rules are bad then thats great, but its not censorship for them to have and enforce rules on their own website.This is not a first amendment issue and flickr shouldn't treat it as one, that amendment does not give you the rights being implied here. If your Dad sent a complaint to flickr about you posting his photo and you continued to repost it, then sure your stream should be deleted.
- Richard Lawler
Richard it is actually censorship if Flickr deletes an account. It might not be Govt. censorship (which also may or may not have taken place in this case). Censorship doesn't have to be Govt sponsored to be considered censorship. It may be *justifiable* censorship to you but it is still censorship.
- Thomas Hawk
No, it's censorship if they remove it because of the content, which is exactly why whether it is political speech or not should never come into play.
- Richard Lawler
Richard, Flickr did remove Shepherds account because of content. That's exactly why his account was deleted. Content of an image (detainee torture abuse) and content of his words (protesting the Obama administration) that they called spam but would not define.
- Thomas Hawk
You've decided it was the content based on their lack of a hard definition for spam, but that doesn't make it so. What he was doing doesn't serve for justification for how he went about doing it.
- Richard Lawler
Not sure anyone in this long thread has corrected the assumption that this is "censorship." Censorship is inherently a government act. If it's not an act of government, by definition, it isn't censorship.
- Jon Lebkowsky
At least, if you folow the strict, original defnition of the term. There's a huge issue here, but I don't see it as an issue of censorship.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Censorship by any definition is anyone preventing anyone else from fully using our right to free speech. .this is censorship of the worst kind.
- John Blanton
from twhirl
Jon: Censorship is not limited to government accts. Your confusing "censorship" with "government censorship," a common mistake that people make. Since you mention the definition of the term, check out the definition in the dictionary. Richard, according to Shepherd, his account was deleted in part for the photo and in part for what they call spamming (without any notice or warning I...
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- Thomas Hawk
Again, you have a right to free speech in /public/ - Flickr is a /private/ place. Just as you can dictate the speech that goes on in your own home, so can Flickr in their message boards. It may be censorship, but it is not infringing on your right to free speech We are all free to bitch about Flickr in public. So's the guy they dumped. Flickr is free to censor any damn thing they like...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It is censorship, but it's perfectly legal and "fine" for them to do, however offensive and inadvisable it may be
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob, I've never said his speech on Flickr is protected. I've never said that what Flickr did her was illegal. Flickr can censor me for wearing a green shirt if they want to. Nobody's disputing that. I'm saying it's bad policy and as one of the most active community members who has put thousands of hours into the site and thousands of pieces of content into the site, I think their...
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- Thomas Hawk
I do wish actually though that the White House would in fact address the question of whether or not they censor comments on their own Flickrstream. I think it's a fair question in light of Obama's oft promised new "transparency" in Govt.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas: no you never said any of those things. And i have to agree that it's bad policy. I think in general censorship sucks no matter who does it. And definitely I think you're correct that the Obama Administration should address that question. It's a fair question regardless of promised "transparency" - it's a fair question because it is OUR government. (of, for, and BY the people, right?)But, we've sen on several occasions already that the Obama White House cannot & will not live up to it's promises.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Thanks Pat :) Well said.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Pat, calling it *government* censorship (which in fact may or may not have taken place here) implies that it's a First Amendment freedom-of-speech issue. Calling it censorship is simply stating what it is. If FriendFeed decided to delete a user's account for posting images of prison detainee abuse that would also be censorship. Fortunately for all of us, Friendfeed doesn't seem to be...
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- Thomas Hawk
It does suck, but we do have to remember that this type of censorship is also an exercise of freedom as well. No matter how much it sucks, it is Flickr's right to do it. (no matter how bad it is for their users, or their own company it's still their right -we are all free to engage in our own stupidity) "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
"I will defend your right to say it" indeed - but I won't defend your right to yell it, say it over and over right in someone's face, or heckle in a public space. And I wont defend your right to say it by force to people who dont want to hear it. None of these are free speech - As soon as your speech infringes on the free speech or freedom of others, it's no longer free speech. If...
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- Iphigenie
Sorry, Joelle, I can only say you've never encountered an issue where your passion and your politics overrode your sense of propriety, (I have) because that is what you are talking about now. Unless you have suddenly become a public figure at the level of the President of the United States. Free speech as a right protects us against the government, not against corporate assholes, which...
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- Rick Powell
Why do you think there have been so many versions of the tech press? The next ones to go are TC, Mashable, Gigaom, RWW, PaidContent etc.
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do you mean you think they will go bust?
- David Lloyd
If they aren't careful, and don't adhere to established journalism ethical standards, I suspect that's just what he means.
- Gregg Morris
I've yet to see one do it. In the end the companies require complicity in order for the reporters to have access to rollouts, betas, etc. The ones that survive are the ones with access. What it takes are companies with the guts to not take shortcuts. If FB didn't give the reporters favorable treatment, they'd get killed in the press, but they also wouldn't be dependent on them. They don't want to take the chance, so they take the shortcut.
- Dave Winer
seems like most of them (tech press) evolve from initially objective, to chummy, to the dispensers of what is hot or not, and finally, to telling every tech company they come across what their strategy should be
- mike
But the wild card is that the users have better and better communication tools, so the route-arounds happen faster. TechCrunch is just four years old and was started with almost no investment capital. Compare that to the millions needed to start news.com. When TechCrunch is replaced it'll be with someone with a $0 investment as well. The only thing they won't have is access, which at the turning point will be seen as an advantage by users. (Not an insider, telling the truth, not being a lap dog.)
- Dave Winer
Now if one of these guys tells FB to fuck off, or tells Twitter to take them off the SUL so they can blast the others for being on it -- all bets are off. We might just get out of the spiral. We're at a pretty important point in the cycle, imho.
- Dave Winer
What about Leo Laporte's TWiT Network model? Will he eventually be the 'next to go'?
- Chris Heath
Did FB reserve Leo's name? Is Leo on the SUL? I don't think Leo is inside. He probably *wants* to be, but he isn't.
- Dave Winer
For all Leo's success he has never been *that* influential in the tech world. I was at an Nvidia show last year, and the diggnation podcast Kevin Rose etc were doing a live show and they had private parking for the whole team, wifi access etc, Leo was doing a live TWiT show and had no parking spot reserved, no internet access and no other perks at all. Leo is very much on the outside looking in.
- David Lloyd
But Mark, that's how reporters are *supposed* to be. That's how we want them to be. Proxies for us, not PR people for the people who make the products. Done right, it's not supposed to be a job for rich superstars, it's supposed to be a relatively thankless thing people do because they're passionate about what they do.
- Dave Winer
Part of that is because Leo does not talk to PR people. But Dave, Leo does have a facebook page already... http://facebook.com/LeoLaporte
- Chris Heath
Scoble does that sort of thing. He champions companies, gets inside and is more evangelist than reporter. Why isn't he in your list?
- Debi Jones
Debi, good question. I don't really know what he does. I'm going to wait until his site becomes public, which should be in just a few hours, before even beginning to form an opinion.
- Dave Winer
I can tell you the site is built around video interviews and they are in the same style as his interview shows for all the companies he has worked for. When it comes to videos, Scoble has essentially done the same job for all the companies he worked for: he just services a different master each time.
- David Lloyd
Of course, way before digg, Kevin Rose was first seen on the screen savers - which was created by leo laporte and patrick norton. I subscribed to comcast cable in 2000 specifically because they had the techtv channel.
- mike
TechCruch was built with sweat equity, I don't see it being duplicated or made irrellevant anytime soon.
- Christian Burns
Techcrunch will live on when Mike steps down
- David Lloyd
building43 is basically a wordpress blog with typical scoble interviews with some big names and some hidden gems. I am afraid it isn't going to change the world. Scoble's paid gig is to shill rackspace to startups and other tech companies.
- David Lloyd
If you want an idea of how it will all work @arrington did a QIK 20 minute video interview with scoble yesterday about the site and asked some excruciating questions which put Scoble on the spot.
- David Lloyd
Mark, do you have a link to that interview? Sounds worth checking out. They both irritate me at different times in different ways, so it should be fascinating. *grin*
- Ken Kennedy
Slight Correction mike, The ScreenSavers was originally hosted by Leo and Kate Botello http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Chris Heath
Chris, that is so right and she was hot, nerd gurl nirvana. thx for reminding me :)
- mike
20 minute interview with Arrington and Scoble: http://qik.com/video/1850783
- David Lloyd
I think you overestimate how much "insider info" we get, Dave. From Facebook, Twitter, etc? Almost never do we get warning. We're watching every news source and corporate blog like hawks. :)
- Ben Parr
For me I get my tech news from friendfeed so there is a shift under way. As for what I am I am trying to help this industry reach out to regular businesses and explain all of these new technologies.
- Robert Scoble
Ben, I don't know how cozy you are or aren't with the tech companies. But I know that you're pretty snug with Twitter. That much is visible. :-)
- Dave Winer
Journalists stay in business by cultivating relationships with sources - that's a pretty universal fact, not just with the tech press. It's always a dance to avoid getting too close and cushy for the sake of something less than pure motivations. In today's environment, though, the multiplicity of online channels in any market segment in conjunction with purely social media buffers us against this kind of corruption. As soon as someone spoons too lovingly for something they get outed.
- John Blossom
John, that's why blogging took off -- because the tech press was so rotten with the vendors, they'd never say anything negative about them. So when you wanted to find out if a product really worked, you'd do what we do now -- listen to other users. Amazon built an empire on that idea. Of all the Web 2.0 companies they may be the only ones who get that the press doesn't control what users know anymore, that the users are getting it for themselves.
- Dave Winer
I'm not so sure about any of these going boom anytime soon. There are still too many people reading them even though they seem to be to cozy with some of their sources (at least that's what it looks like to me from the outside without any real proof that this is even remotely true). And Leo's network isn't really comparable to any of these, in my opinion, simply because he seems to be looking at all this more from the outside and doesn't focus on one product or even group of products.
- Horst Gutmann
Mark: interesting, but it's pretty clear that you didn't watch any of the videos I put up on http://www.building43.com -- not one of them has shilling for Rackspace. As for if I'm doing the same thing I did at, say, Microsoft, Podtech, or Fast Company, well, I don't remember clicking like 19,000 times for Microsoft or Podtech. I am the only tech blogger who links more often to other tech bloggers than to myself.
- Robert Scoble
In Tech, like everything else, in the press makes you, the press can break you. Better to be succesful by engaging directly with customers.
- Robert Hafer
If you haven't noticed I don't do much "tech news" anymore. I didn't go to Apple's event. I didn't go to Google's event. Why? I knew I'd read about them in live time on Twitter and friendfeed. I choose to go to places other people can't get into. I have the first interview with Mark Zuckerberg inside Facebook's new offices. Did I learn much from that? No. The other interview with Caitlin from Facebook Pages actually teaches people more. But the Zuckerberg interview gets more hits.
- Robert Scoble
As to the question, the tech press turns over when the technology they are covering changes and they don't recognize it. There are some who made their careers covering Microsoft. They were very popular in the 1990s. Now? Most of them you couldn't name. Another thing that causes them to turn over? Changes in audience behavior. We all used to get PCWeek or Infoworld on our desks every...
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- Robert Scoble
How sizeable is this shift? Almost everyone I invited to the party last night is on friendfeed. Everyone was on Facebook. If they didn't have their email address on Facebook, Google, or friendfeed, they didn't get invited. There weren't many entrepreneurs, press, bloggers, innovators, Silicon Valley insiders who I couldn't find an email for online and about 85% are already on friendfeed, a service Arrington says "no one" uses.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble please start another thread. Thanks...
- Dave Winer
I wouldn't put PaidContent, RWW and Gigaom in the same breath as Mashable. That seems patently unfair.
- Brandon Mendelson
When Scoble shows up that's the end of discourse. It's as if we have to fit everything inbetween his plane trips or when he's busy at a party or something that keeps him away from the computer. I'm not joking, he sucks all the oxygen out of a discussion.
- Dave Winer
Anyway, I just wrote a blog post about this thread. I'd encourage others to do the same. I find these long FF threads repetitive and Scoble-obsessed. This is an important idea. http://www.scripting.com/stories...
- Dave Winer
it sounds like there are a couple of things being discussed here and i'm not 100% sure they are connected. 1) media bias, and 2) changing of the guard in tech media. Chomsky's "propaganda model" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) attempts to explain media bias in mainstream media. it's possible this model also applies (to some degree) to the tech press. bias itself doesn't mean people will reject you: look at Fox News.
- Karim
to the extent the tech press has a changing of the guard, or is constantly being reinvented, it seems just as likely to me it's because *technology* changes. BYTE magazine probably died because they were still doing articles on hardware hacking and algorithms when people had moved on to higher abstractions and were buying PCs & software off the shelf. it's not that BYTE had some kind of bias, it's just that it stuck to what it knew, failed to evolve, and became irrelevant.
- Karim
*if* TC dies it may be because they continue a focus on startups in an age when startups are less relevant -- not necessarily because they are in bed with anybody...
- Karim
I don't think they've been focusing *enough* on startups. Too much industry intrigue and venture capital insider stuff. More like a newsletter than an end-user thing. When they were great was when they captured the enthusiasm of the creative people. Now they're jaded and too into themselves. That misses the point, journalism works when it's a mirror, the simpler the better.
- Dave Winer
As an interesting aside, on the most recent Cranky Geeks podcast they were talking about the trend of journalists (especially tech journalists) becoming individual brands and celebrities in a sense and how that is a bad thing. To your point Dave, it wasn't until TechCrunch that I began to start to look first for the author on any post whereas before, I was merely aware of the overarching brand (website) I was visiting.
- Mike Bracco
To me, the author is a very important part of any piece of writing. Sometimes the byline tells me to pay more attention and sometime it tells me to take what I read with a grain of salt or pass altogether. I'm of the belief that past performance is a good way to measure people in professions like journalism. For instance, I'll be strongly biased against anything Judith Miller writes in the future because of her part in the Plame leak.
- Chris Heath
The importance of the author doesn't mean celebrity to me either, just to be clear. And Mike, I did just watch that ep of Cranky Geeks. Dan Goodin was exactly correct in saying that journos should be approaching each story from the outside if they wish to serve their readers and not the people and companies that they are writing about because that is how the reader approaches these products/services/etc.
- Chris Heath
RT @elisabethrobson: People wonder why there aren't more women in computer science. This is one reason why: http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog... Sigh.
Horst Gutmann liked this
AJ Batac :), Abhishek, Chris Gardner and 44 other people liked this
اه اه اه
- رامین
It's strange how something can be cute and disgusting all at the same time.
- Aaron Hood
it looks like a loaf of bread from a 3rd world country
- Lokei Atikus™®
You mean that isn't the new Quizno's wrap?
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks.
- Mona Nomura
i kinda like how the mice don't even mind having their house cross-sectioned and then being photographed while sleeping... :-p
- Live4Emma (L4S)
i have to say mice are pretty darn cute.
- anna sauce
Aww
- Rodfather
Yuck :(
- YoYo_P
That's about nasty!
- MicahBear78
looks like traditional East German Mausbrot. but come on, people, can you blame them? i mean, who among us would not choose to live inside a piece of delicious cake, should such housing exist?
- Karim
i agree. the mice are quite practical - "sustainable" housing, good insulation, etc. i bet they can even bike to work
- Cee Bee
=))))))))))))))))))))))))
- BeHRO☺☺OZ
D^8
- Chieze Okoye
Looks like a fancy specialty bread....
- Jamie Ginsberg
I think that they are cute!
- BEX
に、逃げてーっ。もふもふ食べられちゃうっ！ もふもふっ！
- Sakurai.Catshop
from fftogo
Awww
- Mike Reynolds
:))
- آریــوبرزن
They look so comfy. There's nothing like a warm comfortable place to sleep with a roof over the head, especially when you have plenty of bread $.
- James Stratford
Really cute! I'm not sure that I'd like to find them in MY cake, but they are cute little buggers. @Sakurai.Catshop 大丈夫、少ししか食わない。笑)
- Rick Cogley
Now I don't need lunch. Thanks.
- Steven Perez
哈哈....
- Aether
ooops the irish don't like being called brits ;-)
René Clausen Nielsen and Horst Gutmann liked this
Probably even less than Austrians like being called Germans ;-)
- Horst Gutmann
Well there is Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, one actually IS Britain, one is a unique country on its own right and nothing to do with Britain. So some Irish GENUINELY are Brits, and some will be pissed if you call them Brits.
- David Lloyd
Even suggesting Ireland (the independent state) is like the UK will raise an ire.
- Jason Nunnelley
Gotta say we saw this coming. TechCrunch inches toward the deadpool. http://www.businessinsider.com/techcru...
David Cancel and Horst Gutmann liked this
I prefer TC over Mashable
- David Lloyd
I see them more as complimentary not competing sites.
- Chris Heath
don't really prefer either. Mashable looks like a giant ad.
- Will Higgins™
My goodness Steve Gillmor really needs an editor to read his copy :)
- David Lloyd
The Twitpocalypse is Near: Will Your Twitter Client Survive? - http://simonwillison.net/2009...
Fabian Neumann and Horst Gutmann liked this
GameCamp Munich - http://www.gamecampmunich.de - Das BarCamp für die Spielebranche am 20/21 Juni in München. Anmeldefrist ist der 16te Juni. Go for it.
Horst Gutmann liked this
I just want to reiterate my request to be able to collapse comments after you have expanded them. Or am I overlooking something?
Hans-Juergen Koch, Yolanda, Susan Beebe and 10 other people liked this
Hide/Undo works for me - two clicks but at least it does the job
- Brian Sullivan
Brian, that may help a bit. Not entirely optimal, but an option.
- Rob Diana
I just refresh the page (or click the Friendfeed link at the top.)
- Leo Laporte
Refresh doesn't work for me, mainly due to the reasons Pavan gave. I may read one post and comment stream for a while, but I still want to see what is below it.
- Rob Diana
Yes, re-collapsing would be very welcome.
- Kol Tregaskes
Hey Rob, Have you thought about opening the conversations you want to participate in as a separate tab? Clicking the time stamp below an entry will show you the expanded conversation in realtime, letting you comment as necessary. As always, thanks for the suggestion!
- Ross Miller
Ross, I have done that before and that definitely works. However, I was thinking along the lines of the "general feel". When you expand something, normally there is the option to collapse it again.
- Rob Diana
Is Twitter Really That Big? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...
Wayne Sutton, Mac Sharp and Horst Gutmann liked this
Three separate people today asked me to stop trying to get the masses onto friendfeed. Turns out there are a lot of people who liked friendfeed when it was "uncool" better. I think friendfeed is going to disappoint these users long term as it goes more mainstream.
John Field, Nicola Quinn, Sean Kelly and 73 other people liked this
Isn't Identica for the "uncool" people?
- Jesse Stay
Everything changes, get used to it...we are so reluctant to change (I'm generalizing of course)
- Owen Greaves
If these users are worried about the masses coming to FriendFeed, they are using it wrong. The user controls who they see.
- Johnny
Johnny: I think they know that they can't resist adding too many people and are worried that vapid people who are marketing stuff to them will come here. Plus there are early adopters who like using new things before everyone else is. Louis Gray wrote about the stages of adoption products go through. I have to find that.
- Robert Scoble
The beauty of friendfeed is the filter system and groups/lists. With the masses arriving, at least it will be easy to shape your own experience, whether you want to hear from the masses or not.
- Andrew VanderVeen
I expect you're talking about: http://louisgray.com/live... , Robert.
- Ken Kennedy
I also disagree with that statement too. Friendfeed is a content distributions system. A year ago the content I saw here was much geekier than it is today. We are not really in total control of what we see, particularly in search here.
- Robert Scoble
I see no threatening masses approaching. They're still way behind, and to be honest, just embracing Twitter. Hmm, maybe why I'm loathing Twitter of late.
- Mo Kargas
Robert is the geekiness still there only mixed up with a lot of other things or has the content gone away?
- Johnny
Johnny: it's mixed up with a lot of other things. I've found as this has happened I've become much more adept with lists (friend management) and filters (saved searches). I don't mind the impending masses, I see ways I'll deal with them a lot better here than I can on Twitter, but some people really like the intimacy of services that aren't yet popular.
- Robert Scoble
Mo: the Twittering masses are joining here at a pretty nice clip. I'm getting about 1,000 new followers a week. Those are numbers I didn't see on Twitter until it was a year older than friendfeed is.
- Robert Scoble
Yeah... Hipsters will be hipsters. My flag is planted very firmly in this piece of ground here so, yeah. I'm staying
- Johnny
@Robert 1000 a week! Hmm, I'm of two minds now. One part is happy that fresh faces are joining, the covetous part is not. I guess that's the intimacy thing you feel.
- Mo Kargas
I need to understand ff better
- Bo Lora
I look forward to more people - the more that come the more useful it will be for learning and networking. I love this place.
- Robert Freeze
As long as we don't get spamers over here
- Robert Freeze
Friendfeed ROCKS, bring on the new users... The more the merrier!
- John Serra
If the community here wants to keep the community the size it is now, FriendFeed will die and the community will not be here any more. Growth is necessary for survival. This is not your toy. So Robert (and all of you???), keep it up.
- Louis Gray
They thought the same thing about putting more transistors on a chip in the Sixties, that it would become hotter and unstable. Turned out it was just the opposite, the more they put on there, the closer they put them together, the cooler they ran and more efficiently they ran. Thank you Quantum Dynamics.
- Stephen Pickering
So, does this mean that the more people who join FF, the hotter Scoble gets? I think I'll bolt the second he gets into borat-slingshot-land.
- Wirehead
No, the more people, using the transistor analogy, the cooler and more productive he'll run!
- Stephen Pickering
But the internet is not Facebook, Twitter, or FriendFeed. The internet is YOU. The internet is a fiber optic cable to your home. The internet is last mile gigabit connections. The technology is there, but not the investment. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed are things you get when there is a dearth of connectivity. People cling to bells and whistles. We need wide and dumb, not narrow and smart. This is a communications revolution, or its suppossed to be.
- Stephen Pickering
Don't think FF will catch on in the same way as Twitter because it's more of a closed system. Creating community is more critical here. You can't just follow 2000 people and expect anyone to read your feed. Much slower to get connected here.
- Peggy Dolane
Peggy - Slower and harder, but more rewarding
- Stephen Pickering
<inserting a comment here so someone does quote The Office>
- Micah
Creating a community is more critical if community is what you seek. I don't see how it's an argument that ff is more or less of a closed system.
- Micah
Ryo - its out there, go and get it!
- Stephen Pickering
Micah It's only more closed in the sense that's a steeper learning curve, but technically FF is way more open.
- Stephen Pickering
Stephen, steep learning curve is an understatement! And knowing how hard some people have in figuring out how to use @, RT & DM on Twitter, another reason the "masses" will be slow to get involved over here.
- Peggy Dolane
Yes, it will be slower, but more "sticky" Shakespeare is harder than John Grisham or Angels and Demons but MUCH more rewarding
- Stephen Pickering
OK, bed. I'll leave the infighting to the A-listers and their number of followers, uniques, ROI, and clever "search" monetizations. Night.
- Stephen Pickering
i'm generalising here. aside from the learning curve, i don't think the general public has the paradigm shift to understand the likes of friendfeed and other services similar to it until they experience more of the likes of twitter. the need and usage has to be made more apparent. other than trying to find the next popular thing, they may not get it.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
I still need to get the hang of friendfeed... i have configured the publish to twitter part for feeds that are pulled in from my other services but it doesnt seem to be working... wonder what I could be doing wrong...the realtime feeds are cool..
- Mahesh Patwardhan
It doesn't matter. It has that "it just works" feature. It's useful. It's fun. It's valuable. They will come, and the power of the network is the number of users squared, so I hope everyone in the World comes. Thinking of my above comment, if enough critical mass joins these services, and it has at Facebook, that puts a pressure on last mile fiber to the home (FTTH) to come to fruition. So its all good. :)
- Stephen Pickering
That would pretty well fit with early adopter syndrome, we did twitter, moved to friendfeed, but I don't know if there is a place to go after friendfeed. Who ever is next has to come up with something truly compelling. That alone will be interesting to see "whats next" as more folks crowd into FriendFeed.
- Dan owns Comicsforge.com
Whatever happens will happen. You can't place limits on a social application.
- Rob Record
If you feel a tingling sensation that means it's working.
- Jay Cuthrell
from BuddyFeed
Robert, you keep talking about your saved searches. Do you mind sharing them with us?
- George Iordanou
Robert, in a discussion elsewhere on FriendFeed I referred to it as the Twitterization of FriendFeed. When the marketers and others figure out how to use FriendFeed for thier own purposes FriendFeed begin to take on many of the qualities that people complain about with Twitter. The noise level will go up and the ability to follow any particular thread will become more difficult.
- Paul
from twhirl
Robert, if geekier content is what one seeks, then perhaps something like Ning is a better option where the social network is more highly controlled. If reducing the noise is the goal, and Friendfeed's lists and groups aren't sufficient (I'm convinced they are enough), then why don't these users stick with Facebook where people tend to keep their information less public and befriend...
more...
- John
Paul, I think what will happen is that we'll spend more time deleting off-topic comments and blocking spammers. I wouldn't call it "Twitterization" because you can't delete off-topic comments there, and blocking someone on Twitter doesn't help anyone but yourself.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
...pronoid paranoic 'media activists' are stressed that ff is a beacon for google-lockheed ; twitter is a good hammer for microblog PR imo though. It's lame, that not more kewl people and DJs/VJs at ff, instead more lame-bores and marketingHoaxers at twitter ; http://twitter.com/ewing2001 aka nicohauptstrasse aka nicolumbia http://www.youtube.com/user... aka ... ;)-
- ewing2001akaNicomedy2010
Bruce, you miss my point. I am talking about the crush of numbers that will come with FriendFeed becoming more mainstream. FriendFeed as it is now is fine. But as the number of users grow threads will become much more difficult to follow and participate. Even with the ability to delete and block do you really think that you are going to be able to weed out the noise you will get from Twitter like numbers?
- Paul
from twhirl
I love when more real people get on the service. It's when the when the marketing machines try to tap the mass for their own financial gain that I get frutstrated. Twitter has been over run. Facebook seems to have been able to hold the machine back a little. We'll see what FriendFeed does.
- ChiliMac
If you want FriendFeed search to be relevant, you need a good cross section of internet users. i don't want to see a velvet rope and bouncer....
- Mike Nencetti
I think FF will adjust for higher participation rates. Already they shade the voice bubbles for comments by people you subscribe to. Your subscription lists and hides will control noise, possibly in new ways.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Echoing Andrew's point - FF seems to be well designed to maintain good signal to noise even as the masses join. I'd say they need to do some work to make the controls easier to use, but I trust that they understand the importance of this.
- Robin Barooah
Robert: Don't stop encouraging people. The 'mainstream' contains hundreds of millions of people I am not interested in, and probably thousands who I would love to discover. If you bring them in, maybe FriendFeed will help me to discover them.
- Robin Barooah
while some are anticipating the next friendfeed entity we shouldn't overlook that these known and established services are dynamic. the next big thing may be a catalytic change within an existing service or set of services.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
John, the Ning idea is a sound one, the problem is how many different social media sites can any one person maintain? FF feels like Twitter did last year -- intimate, friendly... mostly because it allows people to follow a smaller group of people or join in a smaller conversation like this one. The wall we are hitting is size -- social media works best in small scale with thought leaders. But it is NOT a way to broadcast or communicate with the masses.
- Peggy Dolane
And then Oprah will join and we'll all move on to the next big thing. Pity.
- David Eedle
I think Louis put it best: "Growth is necessary for survival" This could not be more correct. If we look at our economy we see this is the case. If we look at our families, this is the case (if the family doesn't grow more members, eventually it will die out). Our favorite services are no different. Our challenge is to ensure that the people running our favorite social media services do so in a way that promotes our mutual need for growth.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
from PeopleBrowsr
You can now get email / IM notifications for individual groups and individual people. Just click "Email / IM" on any profile page. Once you have turned on notifications for a feed, it will also be visible on your notifications page at http://friendfeed.com/setting...
Matt Kaufman, Jannifer @wordsforliving, Roy Liu and 145 other people liked this
You guys have been busy
- Johnny
I think FriendFeed just became a Google Groups replacement.
- Daniel Sims
Sweet!
- alieb
Fifth!
- Josh Haley
Sixth!
- Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど
that great .. thanks!
- Jay
awesome work guys
- Jamie
Is there any way to integrate the Desktop notification app with Growl on MacOSX?
- Peter Murray
Wow, this is a nice addition. More and more you can use FF for your one stop shop ...even replacing RSS reader (it is close).
- Amani
Quite cool, indeed. Thanks!
- Brett Kelly
Note: as a result of this, we can also subscribe to "My Discussions" ...
- Ahsan Ali
Lovin' this. Need to go to bed so will set it up tomorrow. Thanks!
- Molly
Since I started using twitter, it's been one feature removal after another. FriendFeed, on the other hand, keeps adding features -- features I might not use or might turn off, but features none the less. When can I buy FriendFeed stock (or what do I need to do to get some options)?
- Andy Bakun
very cool, keep up the new features coming
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Excellent, thanks guys.
- Kol Tregaskes
See MG Siegler's nice write up on this new feature over on TechCrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- Susan Beebe
this is pure awesome-sauce.
- Marcel Weiß
very kool. any chance you will have this for saved searches in the future?
- (jeff)isageek
imaginary friends are back! ;D
- Jordi Gerona
+1 (jeff)isageek for IM/email notifications on new posts to your Saved Searches
- Nathan Chase
This thread was discussed on the FFundercats (http://www.ffundercats.com/2009...)
- Josh Haley
Any opinions on "show my friends' commented and liked feeds, too" option? It used to be here before, now it's gone.
- Özkan Altuner
it's awesome how often you guys are launching new features; it's definitely setting a terrific pace for others to follow. Great job.
- Muneer Mirza
Twitter Succumbs to Marketer Attack [Toldja So] « The SiliconANGLE - http://www.siliconangle.com/ver2...
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins, Moushumi Kabir, andy brudtkuhl and 26 other people liked this
This happens for a variety of reasons, all of which are due to a poor design on Twitter. First, a block doesn't remove people from search. Second, I should be able to set the trending topics, Twitter shouldn't choose those for me. Twitter is too enamored with popularity. Popularity is often the WORST way to decide what to display. Third, there's no decentralized moderation system, like there is on friendfeed. Fourth, there's no metadata, so you can't say "don't show me things that don't have a like."
- Robert Scoble
from Bookmarklet
Chris: I'm using it less and less, believe me. I used to be hyper addicted to Twitter. Now I'm seeing more and more people joining me over on friendfeed. I don't think that's due to an accident.
- Robert Scoble
Is the velocity of innovation increasing exponentially? Will friendfeed be out done by something new? Are we doomed to mediocrity stuck in mud upon popularity? What model could foresee and adapt?
- Eric Standlee
Well Robert, I never got into Twitter mainly because of how hard it was to follow a conversation. The more I use friendfeed I like it more and more its easy to jump in or just follow the context of a conversation without having to bounce to each persons twitter site... or maybe I was just using it wrong.
- Nathan McClain
i kinda dug the obscurity of following twitter conversations. it was different than outright plain broadcasts to the world, and you could manually choose not to follow certain 'threaded' topics by not clicking on them. these attacks were bound to happen considering the numbers of ab-users that have joined thinking up 'maven' or 'guru' ways on exploiting said technology for their own nefarious goals.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Eric: I don't know about increasing innovation, but this has been going on since the 1980s. Back then I used to be on a BBS. I left that for AOL, Prodigy, CompuService. I left those for Usenet. I left that for blogs. I left blogs for Twitter (mostly). I am now in the process of leaving Twitter for friendfeed. Will there be something after friendfeed? Yes.
- Robert Scoble
In the words of Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins "Twitter becoming an MLM and spam cesspool"
- Ciro Villa
Twitter is still a fascinating message bus, not a destination, for the reasons you say. FF isn't quite the message conduit that Twitter is, as it's a hybrid communication conduit (responses here, for example), and aggregator. Twitter is still an exemplarary, *pure*, communication bus - like IRC.
- Dave Mee
spam is bad obviously, but i must admit i am kind of enjoying the new mainstream twitter. one thing i have noticed for example is the hip hop community migrating from myspace to twitter. i can't see them coming to friendfeed, but who knows. Also while marketing gaming in annoying, its lovely to see people playing tag games at scale. trending manipulation for the masses is fun. hard to manage for sure. but to my mind good to see
- James
James: they will come when they figure out the power of rooms and the fact that you can play music right in line here.
- Robert Scoble
I don't see anything surpassing FriendFeed as the optimal place to socialize online in the next couple years, unless keyboards/monitors get replaced with some other interface.
- Bruce Lewis
holy jebus Robert that really is real time. i have *never* had a comment back in any medium that fast, even IM.
- James
In the absence of trust and recommendation systems metadata such as liking would still be prone to attack.
- Mike Chelen
Mike, that's true for search, but for your main feed your social network protects you from that sort of thing.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce, the source of the trending topics problem is that they are unaffected by the user's selection of friends
- Mike Chelen
I see what you're saying, Mike. I wasn't thinking about that, since I only care about trending topics my friends find interesting. If you're in a position where you have to watch general trending topics, I can see how there would be a challenge to weed out astroturfing.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: people who use http://www.twitter.com have no choice in what trending topics they see.
- Robert Scoble
It strikes me that part of the reason that Twitter is so popular is that it has become a lightning rod for so many good mobile and desktop apps. That's how Twitter has been able to rise above the spam and marketing noise as it has.
- Ed Moltzen
Ed: Twitter's API simplicity and the mobile and desktop apps are, indeed, a major part of its success. I really wonder how friendfeed is going to see anything close to that. If I were at friendfeed I'd focus a LOT of attention on mobile experiences. That's already where I probably spend 30% of my friendfeed time.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I think it's their biggest draw back at the moment. I have a hard time interacting with FF when I am not in front of a computer.
- Aaron Kurtz
Robert: I went through gopher, bbs, prodigy, aol, msn for awhile, usegroups, yahoogroups, blogs, twitter and friendfeed now as well as facebook. It would be fun to see these plotted on a timeline to see if it is accelerating. The change sure seems to be accelerating. Maybe reviewing the timeline we can predict the next one.
- Eric Standlee
Twitter shouldn't be a topic of conversation. It's just a waste of time. Twitter cares more about popularity than the community. One need to browse through their 'Suggested Users' to come to that conclusion. Why should Oprah matter more, considering she has absolutely nothing to contribute to the community other than attract digital fans? Discussing Twitter gives them exposure, which they deserve less and less by the day. My rock stars aren't like their rock stars (borrowed phrase)! http://tr.im/lLIk
- Moushumi Kabir
My new service : "ffOldAvatars" takes you back and shows previous profile pictures of your FriendFeed account. - http://ffOldAvatars.com
yasin, Onur Şentüre, Vesna Gerintes and 139 other people liked this
Try it out now :) - I coded and @hmert designed it.
- Alp
OMG, that is SO COOL!
- Anika
That's awesome!
- Jandy
awesome :D
- Kim
Anika, and Jandy... You're in showcase at the main page. Try refreshing :)
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
cool tool
- LeON
December 3rd, 2008 18:00:32 ilk avatarim :)
- Taylan GERDAN (Tylolhot)
nice
- Rachael
it works! awesome
- Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど
I really like the time stamps. Good job, Alp.
- Anika
Thanks! funny!
- Business Blogger 【ツ】™
NICE.
- Derrick
neat little app. good job
- Cee Bee
cool.
- Oguz Serdar
realy nice!
- Safa Paksu
Sweet
- LPH™ and his dog P™
This is amazing and so well done!
- Mona Nomura
Awesome job :)
- Barbara
An actual useful service? weee :) Excellent
- Michael W. May
pea is winning so far
- Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど
Pea --->- http://ffoldavatars.com/index... edit: wow! you have a LOT!
- vijay
"... in action: nathanchase" - Hey, that's me! :)
- Nathan Chase
Alp, this is really nice! Do you know if the (display) names are accessible through similar means?
- Tinfoil 2.0
I am very close to blocking Alp because he is spamming tons of threads that have nothing to do with this service.
- Robert Scoble
sounds pretty interesting...gotta check it out :o)
- Aline Ohannessian
I rarely change my avatar because I consider it a part of my personal branding, but with some people, this might be interesting.
- Thomas Frütel
great idea, great man, great job :)
- batuhan
I wonder who's idea was interesting the first idea
- Vehbi
Good job!
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Cool service, Alp.
- Kol Tregaskes
Great service!
- Neya
ellerinize sağlık
- shelan
(my english is really bad (like tarzan english?) but i hope so i can explain myself.) hey christopher carr! i think its just fun.
- batuhan
really great idea :)) waoow :))
- *sahika
Ahmet Alp congrats. You are great thinker and innovator.
- Durukan Duru
that's wonderful... the other name of this service is "fake finder" :)
- Oguz Kaan C Kilinc (okck)
@oğuz kaan: :)
- batuhan
you can find some fake accounts on friendfeed. :).
- batuhan
Useful , reminded you and your profile :)
- Kristo Magno
basit bir script ama dört dörtlük hale getirmişssin,başarılar! (sonradan ekleme ; bu kadar ingilizce yorumun altına Türkçe biraz havalı kaçtı sanki :) :P
- mehmetakif
How does it work?
- Vezquex
_Vezquex, enter your nickname to the box and click the button next to it. (or are you asking about the infrastructure of the system?)
- Alp
nice
- nahnu
very cool. Thank god scoblehulk is now gone.
- Nick Wade
Nice idea :)
- Jemm
Best of the day :)
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
no speak english ;) goot byyy
- Ürfet D€MİRT@Ş
awesome dude! very cool ;)
- AJ Batac :)
Everybody who tried out the service, THANK YOU :)
- Alp
Investigating the community, at least my icons are quite consistent :) Great, I'm taking my second icon back.
- Burcu Dogan
Apple VS Microsoft - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
  |
gfurry, Horst Gutmann, Steven (optionshiftk) and 2 other people liked this
Friendfeed is irresistibly useful now. Recent features add up to a really compelling product. Really hope Twitter never chokes 'em.
David Berrebi, Peter Efland, Tim Moore and 115 other people liked this
Saw this immediately thanks to notifications.
- MG Siegler
Saw your comment immediately.
- Gabe Rivera
BTW, that was my first FF comment since August '08.
- Gabe Rivera
Like a virgin.
- MG Siegler
Welcome back then Gabe!
- Simon Wicks
I'm tellin' ya. FF's back. Just bookmarked their iphone friendly site.
- Mario Sundar
you don't say ;-)
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
The day FF will launch real-time, the earth will stand still.
- Jérôme
Jerome: wut? I myself will lurve saved searches AKA track AKA Gillmor's Grail
- Gabe Rivera
I meant every smart microblogger will have to move to Friendfeed. Time will only run on Friendfeed!
- Jérôme
Gillmor may spontaneously combust if track hits FF before it restarts on twitter
- Adrian
I'd love to hear a list why its "irresistibly useful" for you, Gabe. I'm still quasi-resisting, although I do find it useful.
- C. K. Sample III
I will repeat here: it would be great for users if Twitter and FF merged their capabilities. One completes the other.
- William Mougayar
William, what does Twitter do that Friendfeed doesn't?
- Jérôme
Hey Gabe - great to see you here
- Hutch Carpenter
what recent features excite you
- @baratunde
CK, baratunde: essentially, its capacity to extend Twitter in very useful ways. Creating small friend lists here (to track separately from your main feed) is easier here than with Twitter desktop apps, and the results come in in real time. I also turned on IM notifications for select friends. Remember Twitter had IM? They took the feature away.
- Gabe Rivera
There goes the neighborhood! :-)
- Robert Scoble
The last couple days on Twitter have brought me back to FF as well
- Costa Walcott
Gabe - any plans to add services like FriendFeed/Backtype/Reddit etc to Link Search option in Techmeme. Tried Link Search on top headline i.e. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL... and got zero results from Google Blog Search/Ask and IceRocket returned 5.
- Atul Arora
Atul: huh, putting a URL in FF search does come up with useful results, so I think I'll add FF to the link search list. If those other services have backlink search currently available, please list sample query urls here and I'll take a look. (BTW, to see what Atul's talking about, click "Preferences" on Techmeme, then click "Show Link Search".)
- Gabe Rivera
Backtype aggregates across Reddit, YCombinator and FriendFeed - See http://www.backtype.com/comment...
- Atul Arora
Gabe bit.ly also does link search and returns FriendFeed, Twitter and Backtype results for all bit.ly version of that URLs e.g. http://bit.ly/info/8XNa4. Since @TechmemeFH and @Techmeme are both using bit.ly the link search is simply adding the + after the URL i.e. http://bit.ly/8XNa4+ for the bit.ly based link search.
- Atul Arora
Gabe, here's a link to our connect feature which shows all the conversation around a link (digg, reddit, twitter, friendfeed, hacker news, and posts that link in): http://www.backtype.com/connect...
- Mike Montano
Mike - so what is bit.ly using to show comments from backtype. It shows zero comments. Is it filtering comments so that it only shows comments from the blog page?
- Atul Arora
Thanks Mike, Atul. I will take a close look at this later and probably add some more link search links.
- Gabe Rivera
Atul, yes they're using a method that only fetches comments from the page being queried, though full connect functionality would be a nice addition imo.
- Mike Montano
Hey look Gabe is back! :)
- Susan Beebe
I agree, except that it should be easier to add an external feed other than through the cumbersome creation of an "Imaginary Friend".
- Derek Mahar
My mustache is more lustrous and thick after switching to FriendFeed. I have a lot more energy. Even my wife has noticed certain improvements in my usefulness around the house. Thanks FriendFeed! [I BLUSH]
- Jay Cuthrell
I'm still going to say that I think links to friendfeed discussions on blog posts belong on Techmeme. ;)
- Thomas Hawk
Wait, is this sarcastic Twitter Gabe or normal Gabe? What persona have you decided to adopt on FF? :)
- Matt Cutts
No idea whether it's of use to TechMeme, Gabe, but FriendFeed's API will give you a list of all the entries that link to a specified URL. http://code.google.com/p... You can see it in action with http://ffcheck.com
- Ken Sheppardson
I agree I like Friendfeed simplicity.
- LaShea Miller
Friendfeed just gets better every day (and is incredibly responsive to user feedback!)
- Charlie Anzman
like the notifications air app ... been trying it out.
- Julian Lukács
FriendFeed FTW!
- (jeff)isageek
@mattcutts: hah, no I'm serious here. FF's current feature set now offers great value to me. I suspect FF still has a major challenge offering a compelling and differentiated product to the Oprah crowd, but that doesn't concern me (and FF may nail that eventually).
- Gabe Rivera
@thomashawk: noted. :-)
- Gabe Rivera
I have already noticed a massive increase in followers on friendfeed recently. Anecdotal evidence indicates friendfeed is growing (I find it has a higher utility as well)
- Jordan Willms
Agree, great improvements!
- Tim Moore
Neya, Tvindy, Dominick R. Brady and 13 other people liked this
Halloween?
- Amit Morson
i'm gonna take a guess and say the guy on the left is mr walt disney....
- Chris Heath
re: who's on the left — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Andrey Smirnov
is it possible that people don't recognise Lenin?
- sofiagk
@Sofia Possible it is. Even in Russia youngsters won't know who the guy is.
- Andrey Smirnov
Andrey when you say youngsters how old do you mean? It's like not knowing Plato or Nietzsche. The man was influencial
- sofiagk
Below 15-16, that's for sure. I don't know any statistics but that's the trend. They won't know Plato or Nietzche either, btw )
- Andrey Smirnov
OK, below 15-16 it's kinda normal. But after that I would expect some knowledge
- sofiagk
Hmm, any plans for OpenID support on FriendFeed?
Stephen Judge, Saxtus, Daniel Rowley and 16 other people liked this
OpenID would indeed be very nice. Everyone, please “demand” it at http://demand.openid.net/ :)
- Klaus Alexander Seistrup
Cool, just "Demanded" it for FriendFeed and Digg!
- Tyson Key
@Tyson - what would you want OpenID to do on FriendFeed? Do you want to be able to log in to FF with your OpenID (like a single sign-on)? Do you want to be able to comment on posts with just an OpenID? Post messages with an OpenID? Or do you want FF to be an OpenID provider, so you can log into other RP's with your FriendFeed profile URL? Just curious.
- DeWitt Clinton
Hi DeWitt, it'd be most useful if it was possible to attach an OpenID to my account for SSO (i.e. sign into FriendFeed using one).
- Tyson Key
I'm not ruling out also having OpenID support in FriendFeed as a provider, though.
- Tyson Key
@Tyson - interesting. Out of curiosity, who do you use as your IDP?
- DeWitt Clinton
MyOpenID at the moment, although I used one of my Drupal sites at one time.
- Tyson Key
Here's an interesting idea -- since we already associate so many third party identities with our FriendFeed account, it would be neat to be able to sign into our FriendFeed accounts by simply using the OpenID URL claim mechanism against any of the referenced identities. For example, I could walk up to FF and sign on with any of the openids I claim, such as 'blog.unto.net', 'dewitt.jaiku.com', etc., and by proving the claim immediately get into my account.
- DeWitt Clinton
@DeWitt An interesting idea, although it'd depend on getting others on board with OpenID.
- Tyson Key
It's pretty easy to get people on board with being an IDP. Most are just hoping someone will do something interesting with it. And the more I think about it, the FF as RP scenario qualifies as interesting.
- DeWitt Clinton
In fact ... you could do something very neat with Directed Identity and FriendFeed. If an IDP supports directed identity, then you could go to friendfeed and enter just 'yahoo.com' or 'google.com' as a service provider (that you have an account with). This will redirect you to the provider's sign in form and ultimately offer a profile URL for FriendFeed to add to your account. Even better, offer all of them (flickr, delicious) or (reader, blogger, youtube), and so on.
- DeWitt Clinton
I'm glad this is being talked about. +1 on making FriendFeed an OpenID relying party (for SSO). Beyond that, I think having FriendFeed be able to *use* OpenID's for grabbing remote content from sites that are also OpenID relying parties is also useful.
- Scott Conroy
we don't need yet another openid provider. I'd like to be able to connect on friendfeed with my openid. well I don't mind if friendfeed becomes a provider, but I want it a consumer first
- Régis Décamps
New User Interface Coming to FriendFeed - http://thomashawk.com/2009...
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Moses Kpetigo, aerobroken, Outsanity and 92 other people liked this
What does this photo of Robert Scoble have to do wth the new FriendFeed UI? Well, not much, but they do have a pair of Hulk gloves at the FriendFeed office and since I didn’t have any photo manipulations of Scoble as the Hulk already, I thought now was as good a time as any to make one. Earlier this evening FriendFeed gathered a small group of journalists, bloggers and users at their headquarters in Mountain View, California to demo a new beta user interface that they plan on releasing very shortly. The details of the new user interface are still private with an embargo on the news. According to FriendFeed Co-founder Bret Taylor, the embargo is put in place to make sure that when people write reviews about the new interface that it will coincide with the actual launch of the beta enabling FriendFeed users to try the new site out for themselves.
- Thomas Hawk
hulksmash!
- Brandon
Sounds good! You in on the beta testing then?
- Simon Wicks
yeah Simon, everyone else will be soon as well.
- Thomas Hawk
Cool! :)
- Jemm
more teasers, cmooon
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
OMG that is awesome! What a Hulk of guy!
- Susan Beebe
Those picts show lots of cool folks converging on this eve of the beta rollout Monday - cool team of collaborators
- Susan Beebe
Liked for how the photo came out!
- Robert Scoble
The individual as a PR campaign...
- Aron Michalski
from fftogo
man... you're either totally lame in photoshop or you just forgot that you don't colorize the background to make radioactive people :)
- Dorian Muthig
The fists emanate a green overlay.
- Kevin Fox
Caption: "I'm a social media expert" :D
- Josh Haley
Sounds interesting. I wonder how it'll turn out.
- Tyson Key
I've been putting a list of what we know about the radically new friendfeed design here: http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Robert Scoble
PEP 401 -- BDFL Retirement - http://www.python.org/dev...
Horst Gutmann, Eric Florenzano and Berk D. Demir liked this
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