Wow! Two observations. NYT is 10x Chron? This isn't completely unexpected since they are a global news organization. But we pulled ahead of LAT? That's surprising and may be a leading indicator. Where's Chicago? - Eric Thompson
ok, the option of watching other people's streams just ROCKS o_O - george tziralis
I know that I'm one of them but OMG how can you stand this?! - Orli Yakuel
Orli: I LOVE this. But usually I don't watch it live like that, but just refresh often. - Robert Scoble
still unfamiliar with FF. mostly on twitter as @2healthguru. thanks for invite and keep up the videos!! - Gregg
I'm curious about what are your lists looks like? Do you use lists? - İbrahim Uzun
What i keep thinking about when i see this is how can this be used to show others the power of Social Networking (FF and Twitter in particular). Good example Robert. - David Bisset (sn)
I usually drop into real time mode for a quick peek at what's happening *NOW* and then retreat back to the main FF UI and my custom lists. Good stuff though Robert. Always interesting to see your view of the noise as it flys by. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Jared: now you see what I mean by "the World Wide Talk Show." 24 hours a day. It's crazy! And I'm only following 1/10th to 1/100th of those on FriendFeed (and that's a small number compared to Twitter and Twitter is a small number compared to bloggers and bloggers are a small number compared to humans). Now you understand why the value is going to be in the filtering systems that the geeks make for us. - Robert Scoble
Brian: real time really rocks during news events like #mumbai or Election Night. Watching what you all were saying in real time then is a lot of fun. - Robert Scoble
watching it must cause FriendFeed quite a bit of traffic... :) btw, being smart is actually bad, most people don't like you being smarter than them (talking out of experience here, so better don't waste your time to argue...) - Dorian Muthig
Do you think Scoble is right for following so many then, or is he causing himself more hassle then it is worth? - Josh Chandler
This is crazy! Just crazy stuff! I sometimes can't even follow my own feed of 63! How does RS ever respond to any of our comments? - jamesdkirk
jamesdkirk: I really only look at real time feed during news events like Election Night or earthquakes or #mumbai. It's easier to interact just by refreshing the browser and clicking "Comment". - Robert Scoble
Strangely enough it doesn't really seem that much worse than mine with a lot less subscriptions. I really don't like or use the real time view though so maybe my feeling isn't really accurate. - Brian Sullivan
Looks at how good his AI is. He detected my comment and had and instant response. How could a human do that while that firehose of a feed he got is scrolling by? - Rolf Schewe
Rolf: one thing about human beings: they are far more efficient at pattern recognition than machines are. :-) - Robert Scoble
Arghhh ...I couldn't stand looking at that for too long! - Peter Cattell
Robert: Until your model. You almost had me there. - Rolf Schewe
This is phenomenal for the first 10 sec. But ultimately overwhelming. - Eric Thompson
Eric, it is pretty crazy, isn't it? It's fun to put it up on a second monitor so you can peek over at it once in a while. It's the ultimate attention diffuser, though. Impossible to do anything else but watch it. - Robert Scoble
Robert, yes I think there's something intriguing about Friendfeed. I'm amazed that my 16 & 17 yr old daughters haven't found this yet. But they will. They're still texting at the rate of 3000/month. This isn't that different from watching thousands of feeds scroll by. - Eric Thompson
Jonathan: I disagree. But, that's why you can choose your own editor(s) here (the people you follow become editors and are "picking" things for you to see by clicking "Like" and commenting on them )and why I say that it's far more important to follow carefully than who follows you. The best FriendFeeders bring you high value stuff and low noise. I'm following 200 of such people in a list. But that doesn't mean there's no value to a high flow list either. - Robert Scoble
I find the live feed fascinating. Pattern recognition yes, cellular automaton too. - Nicola Quinn
@Robert. I agree with that, but the realtime stream is far too much to be filtered in any relevant way. FF is great if you use it right (like creating lists) but simply folliowing 4500 in realtime makes it worthless imo. - JonathanJoseph
Jonathan: there is a TON of filtering still to come to RealTime streams. For instance, I filter mine by making a list, which has its own RealTime stream (only 200 people, all hand selected, are on that). Also, in future you'll be able to filter by talking to the stream. For instance, say you have too much. What if you could say "please only show me items with likes." Still too much? "Show me only items with four likes and at least two comments." And there's lots more, too. - Robert Scoble
What if you could say "show me only items with 'Mumbai' in them?" Or, show me only items from people who Tim O'Reilly is also following? Or, what if you could say "show me only items from people located in India?" Can you start to see how your RealTime stream could be filtered? - Robert Scoble
that was actually not as fast as I thought it would be (except when Chris P.'s coupons showed up). Very interesting. I found someone new to subscribe to. - Laura Norvig
waves! Hi Mom! Hello feed! Umm is this thing on? ;-) - Tim
This photo had a particularly moving impact for me. I'm sure there could be many interpretations based on your circumstance. That's what good photography evokes. - Eric Thompson
This is what I see as well in Texas. The "C" word is all you need to use to win an election here. But actually, it has nothing to do with being conservative. As long as you have the right donor base and can cast fear on the electorate (terrorism, raising taxes, etc.), you'll win. There are a lot of short-sited people in my state. - Eric Thompson
I believe word "feed" is very wrong for non-technical people - most of them live better with "stream" & "tape" (or whatever is in your language for paper-tape-style typewriter http://www.etypewriters.com/hi... ) - silpol
I believe the word “friend” isn't quite right either, as I'm following several people who aren't my friends. So maybe PeopleSteams. And I'm sure, as with Twitter, there will be role accounts that aren't people at all. So EntityNews. Once FF buys Google though you get their brands, so you can rename FF to Google, and get rid of web search. - Amit Patel
Oh, geez, now my wife is on FriendFeed and is going to appeal to the community to get me to do things for her. This is a dangerous new world! I better navigate it very carefully. :-) - Robert Scoble
به به بچه های ایرونی بیایید اینجا مریم پرسپولیسی اینجاست :)) - Mil∂d
Ok, this fascinates me, how do the people typing in squiggle-text read the english, then pop in and comment in squiggle, have a brief conversation with someone else in squiggle, and then it goes right back to english? Is there some on the fly translator they have that doesn't work in the other direction? - Adam Turetzky
You tell him!! Bwahahahaha!! @scobelizer - Robert Couture
Ah, i see. I grew up between Iraq & Kuwait. Hence, why I was curious - Zee.
Adam: many Iranians can read English but are more comfortable in communicating in Farsi. Maryam doesn't have the software loaded to write back in Farsi, though. - Robert Scoble
Dear Robert Maryam Can Type Fingilish !! It Meanig For Typing Hello Type Salam :D - Mil∂d
Ahh, ok, so they're Language-dexterous. Does anyone do this in spoken conversation? Like one person speaks in English and the other answers in Farsi? That gives me a headache just thinking about it! LOL - Adam Turetzky
Thanks for all the community support. Mokhleseh hameyeh bachehayeh Irooni. Crowdsourcing is the best way to get what you want. I am soooooooo gonna get a foot massage tonight! Now about that Italian vacation :) - Maryam Scoble
ma ham mokhlesim abji , bego perspolisi hasty ta in ehsan bere donbale karesh - mahyaa
Maryam age cheshato doos dari in harfo nazan :))) - Ehsan Moslehi
Hatman Perspolisie , Vaghty Robert Perpolisi hast maryam ke dige hatman perspolisi bayad bashe - Mil∂d
I love how the Iranians are starting a fight here about their favorite soccer team. Turns out we are classified as fans of Perspilise whose color is red. In California saying you are a red means you are either a Republican or a fan of Stanford. Problem is we are Democrats and fans of Cal, which are both blue. By the way, Maryam is planning a trip to Iran in October, she should hold a FriendFeed party there. - Robert Scoble
نه پس فکر کردی استقلالیه جواته ؟ این مریم و شوهرش با کلاسن عین منو آنام . اسمایلی همه ی پرسپولیسیها با کلاسن - mahyaa
hmmm...sounds like we'll need a whole stadium for such a party ...but it'd be so much fun! :) - Selma
hey go reds ...viva Persepolis :D ...by the way you are a real Iranian wife who order very good ...hey man come back home right now ok?now i mean now!:D:D:D very good - zos
Dear Robert We Invite you to iran , Iranian Like to see you and Maryam :) - Mil∂d
@Adam Turetzky Yeah I do the whole language-dexterous thing with my parents all the time. They talk to me in Hindi and I reply in English, mostly out of habit. It's not as hard as you think ;-) - Mohit
Oh and I didn't know you were a Cal fan, Robert. Go Bears! - Mohit
"So last September, Ms. Zhang decided to take over where nature left off. She checked herself into a hospital here and a doctor cut her shinbones in two, applied a medieval-looking brace to her legs and taught her how to turn its screws so that metal pins would pull her bones apart nearly a millimeter a day, or around four-hundredths of an inch. Today, Ms. Zhang is three and a half inches taller than she was six months ago, though she can not yet walk." - Ana
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This is from a few years back (I'd read it when I was still living/working in China). The recent article I posted about bridesmaids being asked to get botox and boob jobs reminded me of this article. - Ana
I can't believe this, but I can understand it. We want to have bigger breasts, bigger dicks, longer legs, etc. When are we going to be happy with who we are? - Eric Thompson
The surgery worked well for Ana though. - Paul Buchheit
Very interesting, I never even suspected there were so many female gamers over 35 in the world! What's interesting as well is how this depends on geography - I don't think the situation is similar everywhere. - Svetlana Gladkova
The definition of "gamer" is changing so rapidly that we need to do more gaming research to stay current with this field. I did a graduate project about MMORPGs and even though I've been playing MMORPGs for the past few years the data still managed to surprise me. - Sally Robinson
My wife plays Zuma at least 5 hours per week. This doesn't surprise me. - Eric Thompson
If I stopped to read something, if the pictures are good, if it makes me click a link, it almost always gets a like. - Jason Toney
i'm not stingy with my likes, but sometimes i have a problem *liking* something that seems inappropriate to *like* (for instance, something that is sad, etc.). - carlotta fancypants
I like when I like too, though only once for a particular post. On another note, I notice there is a feature (?) that auto-likes? Really korny, if you ask me. - JC unwired
I like dthis for 2 reasons I thought it was interesting discussion and I found someone named carlotta fancypants to subscribe to. That name was good enough I just did it without investigating. Don't do that very much. Good discussion Mona. I only like ... If I like it. - Cody Heitschmidt
yep, gotta be a good post or funny ;) - videopixil
right. agree with carlotta, I didn't want to "like" the story about the Spam King killing himself and his family even though I know that "like" really means "share" or endorse as something of interest. Not sure what the answer to this is. - Thomas Hawk
I'm not stingy. I'm just broke til payday. - Steven Perez
Liking for me is as much a bookmark I can return to - Chris Nuttall
I typically "like" something if I found it interesting (or even just funny/fun). Am with Carlotta/Thomas on the discomfort issue. Am also with Mona on redundancy issues, But when I see people say stuff like "I am on a mission to like 3000 items this week!" it kind of freaks me out. - Robert Seidman
Yuvi: can you settle the ongoing contest (in my head) about who has the most likes and most comments with one of your patent-pending statistical analyses? - Mark Trapp
-raises hand- Question: Are postings shared even if I leave a comment only? - Mona N.
Mona, yes. Unlike likes, comments always share and bump things to the top of your followers' feeds. - Mark Trapp
I've never commented before, and I've never liked something. So consider yourself honored - I do exist! Just not too easy to "like" something from one click in google reader, so I don't. Same with comments. - Steve Butowick
""They cannot depend on weather modification. Nature is bigger and stronger than the Chinese people and rockets," Rahn said." This Rahn guy has no idea. - Ana
"Ana Yang, who ran the Obama office in Erie, has returned to her job with hot start-up FriendFeed. Yang worked on campaigns in five states for Obama. He lost all five primary races. McCain supporters must hope she decides to help out in the general election." - Ana
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I am a big fan of Thomas Hawk, and he is big fan of FF. This is one of my favorite TH photos. As of a few minutes ago it has received 54,470 views, and 593 favorites. He posted it over 2 yrs ago and Flickrites are still commenting on it. - Russellreno
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I am confused. 2 hrs or 27 months ago. I merely comment on the timeline of the comments. - Mathew A. Koeneker
Big ups to the Hawk, the official unofficial photog of my blog. The dude rocks, consistently. Very, very hard act to follow. Check out his favs. Amazing. - Dave Martin
Mathew - Two years. I need an editor! - Russellreno
If you need one than I need a team of them. I just wanted to clarify. TH's pix are easy on the eyes. Plus, I find myself subscribing to many of his FOAF's that also are photographers. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker
Hey thanks Russell. I took this shot on Bourbon Street in New Orleans at Jazzfest in 2006. I wanted to go check out New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The damage was unbelievable. I shot a bunch of that as well. If you ever get a chance check out Robert Polidari's book of photographs "After the Flood" it's well worth it. One of the best books of post Katrina images. I was always surprised that this image of a stripper giving me the finger got as much attention as it did. - Thomas Hawk
This is embarrassing, although I agree with letting the free market dictate consumer decisions.
Grammar please? In this sense I agree with Obama's critics on learning the English language first. - Eric Thompson
And raise and lower prices with 1 day of backlash ... I'd say more Jobs than Apple. Incredible - Charlie Anzman
Great post! All in all, I'd say Apple is better-positioned to weather this "storm" than Microsoft would be (not that *that's* the competition at hand): 1) they can probably react quicker to make the fixes necessary (Microsoft REALLY needs to overcome their "build lethargy" and be more nimble in that regard) and 2) the fanbase & the detractor base is much more forgiving of Apple-the-up-and-comer than they are of Microsoft-the-evil-behemoth. - Craig Eddy
Good point! Apple is the only one that can do that. Any other company would get flames! - fbrunel
It means that products are so good that people can endure anything for getting them. - fbrunel
I'm trying to want to go get an iphone.. really. Can someone tell me something it does that I need? Specifically, I'm rarely more than 5 minutes away from a computer so I'm struggling with upgrading my 40$ att plan to a $100 one? I passed the first time around, but I serious need a new phone and waited for launch hoping to be wowed. - Doug Brooks
I still can't download the iPod touch firmware. I wondering if I ever will be able too. - Jim Williams
Robert, I think you're right about nothing else coming close to the iPhone. But I'll tell you what - I wouldn't repeat today's frustration. As someone once told me "one 'oh, shit' cancels five 'atta-boys'." Let's all learn something from this. - Tom Landini
I can't even fully describe exactly why I love my first iPhone. It's just amazing, despite the activation problems. Long term, Apple will recover from this hurdle...and I'll buy iPhone 4G! - Brian Wilson
I bitch. But you know I have to agree as well. - MG Siegler
So Robert, was the atmosphere in line as interesting as it was while waiting for the original iPhone? Was it worth being in line from the social aspect? Do you think you will bother waiting in line for the third gen iPhone? - Jeff P. Henderson
Funny, but I never have any such issues with my blackberry - no queues, no activation nightmares. I still say it's the corporate choice... - Tom Quinn
Jeff: I only waited in line a couple of hours. The Palo Alto store is geekier but last year was extraordinary. The lines were fun, though. - Robert Scoble
Just linked to the piece ... bottom line ... it's true :) - Charlie Anzman
I waited in line 4 hours in NJ. Well worth it! Better than my stupid work Blackberry. - Ernie Oporto
hmm let me try a different approach.. does anyone know if you can return a phone and cancel a plan if it's not your thing? - Doug Brooks
I agree, it was worth it. Nice article Robert. - Eric Thompson
It just amazes me that microsoft, sony, google, nokia et alia have let Apple get away with this massive coup. They must have all seen the iphone coming a mile away and yet all these years later none of them has yet managed to launch a decent competitor. How hard is it just to copy? - Charlie
The reasonaApple gets away with it is they appeal to the desire to feel elite and special. Features wise the iPhoen is sadly lackign and the companies support for it is miserable. They picked the worst carrier on earth to boot. But since they can make folks feel special for having one, they win the mindshare. The same 10% will pay any price to get that feeling. - Soulhuntre
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"Apple is an amazing company. One that can abuse you, and make you love it at the end of the process. " I've dated women like this. :) - Adam Turetzky
CHarles - why copy it? Honestly. No MMS to speak of, a bad camera, no video, no copy / paste, no background tasks, weak gps, locked in OS and a difficult developer kit. Yes, it loosk cool... but other than that the hardware and software is well below current standards for Blackberry and Windows Mobile systems. I know, I'm a heretic. - Soulhuntre
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Not loving Apple today-- My cool aid appears to be tainted - Mark Nassal
via twhirl
It really wasn't so bad at all. The launch today was a bottleneck of too many people and: 1) not enough technology (the servers), and 2) knowledge (AT&T). I was inconvenienced for a while in the afternoon, but once the servers opened back up, It was all systems go with the 3G and I was back in a state of wonder at what a great product this is. - Steve Isaacs
Did you really cut the line with your son? Just to be first?Tell me, was it worth it? How many people were there before you? Do you really think that it was fair, or are you both that "special" that you get to jump the line. I am sorry, but to brag about jumping the line is tacky. You didn't even acknowledge, nor thank those who supposedly let you jump the line. Talk about gratitude or lack of. Oh well. - Becca
The moral of the story, son... it's good to be King (Douchebag) - Shawn Collins
I thought he jumped the line so he could film the event, not to get his own iPhone. - Victor Ryden
RAK: I didn't cut in line. I was invited into the line by the group of people in the front. Everyone saves spots. We did it last year for people, too. Or did you forget that I bought Dave Winer and Steve Gillmor's iPhones last year? (I waited in line, they did not). - Robert Scoble
I think that the kool-aid the tech world is drinking has not caught on mainstream. Not even close. Was talking to a group of friends today, they don't even know what the iPhone 3G is. Awesome phone (over-hyped of course), great tools, app store launched, etc. But it'll take some time for the average, non-wealthy Joe to care why it exists ...maybe the iPhone is not really changing the world the way everybody thinks it is... - David Adewumi
In the meantime, new iPhones are now selling on Ebay for close to $2,000 :-) Definitely worth the hell... ;-) - Jesse Stay
They should have put big hamster wheels along the lines, so that people waiting could get some exercise. - Tal Ater
Hamster wheels a good idea - we should get them to generate electricity by connecting them to the grid - the queue could get some excercise and actually do something useful - Brian Sullivan
Glad to hear your son made it out of there ok. :) - David Cook
Thomas, another great portrait! I love the expression on his face, he looks very happy considering he is homeless. What is your sense about the homeless people you have photographed so far. Do they seem at peace with the fact they are homeless or is there an underlying sense of despair? - Jeff P. Henderson
I think this is one of my favorites so far. Well done. - Justin Korn
Beautiful shot. I think your $2 portrait project is a fantastic idea. - matt hollingsworth
Nice one again! It's easy to just ignore these guys (that's what I do most of the time). By taking a picture you give them some time and show respect. I think that's great! - Daan
I truly look forward to reading your $2 portrait stories. I think I like most that you talk to them about their lives. That shot was amazing. I love the emotion. - Jeremy Kunz
“Restrained myself from giving a thumbs up to the downtown Seattle driver blasting Kid Rocks version of "Knockin on Heavens Door." Thought he might think I was hitting on h
