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FriendFeed
“is there a way to force a minimum font size for a page within fluid? (specifically friendfeed)”
July 29 at 5:39 am - Link
Main Menu -> View -> Make text larger/smaller. I've noticed that FF's mobile site seems to prevent altering the size of the text. :0[ - Todd Ditchendorf
ah thanks for that - but i was also wanted to make it a permanent thing rather than resetting everytime i open the ssb. for example, i would like to be able to set a preference that every time my fluid friendfeed opens the minimum font size is set to x. rather than having to bump up the font size manually. thanks - h1ro
Maybe use a userstyle that declares the font-size-adjust attribute? - Chris Messina
Twitter
Twitter
Blog
August 27 at 1:54 am - louisgray.com - Link
Well put, Louis - I think you covered all my frustrations - Jesse Stay
2, 5, 7, 8 are my favorites. I'd also like to add the ability to hide certain post that match a keyword, e.g. McCain etc.. - Tibor Holoda
Tibor, you are right. Forgot that one. A rooms directory also seemed to small for a list of ten. - Louis Gray
Feel free to make it 11 point long, it seems everyone's a sleep still anyway ;) - Tibor Holoda
Good points. I'm particularly keen on 1, 2, 6 and 7. Reshared to Friendfeed Beta room btw. - David Young
I commented on it. Mostly love the suggestions. - Robert Scoble
1 and 10 I really like. - Johnny Worthington
#9 is essential. - @daiski
I'd also like to see Disqus comments to be treated as comments, which by implementing Louis suggestion in point 2, will make more sense i guess. Comments are comments, posts are posts. In case there will be no link to which the comment is added, it could work like posting a link with the Disqus comment under. Btw, @Robert, you don't have Disqus hooked up in FF ;) - Tibor Holoda
Excellent post Louis. You are pretty much spot on with those 10 suggestions. - Mike Fruchter
Tibor: I don't like Disqus pulling in comments here. Often I want different communities to remain separate. I'll manually pull in comments or point out when I've made comments that FriendFeeder's should be aware of. Like I did here. - Robert Scoble
11. add user definable font size. the new beta makes me squint :) - h1ro
#9! I hide things liberally and it does bug me, when I click on page 2, I'm seeing page 1 all over again. - Yolanda
Free booze?? - john conroy
Great suggestions Louis, I would also add: The Ability to Hide Specific RSS Feeds and Search All Entries by URL - Shey
and go-faster stripes, a background of babes in bikinis, and intermittant embedded hilarious fart noises. - john conroy
I have to so that FF has been growing well with the current feature set. Like all areas of activity contraints can sometimes be helpful. FF needs to innovate itself, rather than copy straight from Twitter (DM's), Facebook (profiles) etc. 2,4,10 are most important. The issue here is not so much what features we want as how can FF grow into a mature platform. - Roberto Bonini
Robert: I see your point, but i still think it would be a good thing to handle Disqus comments as comments, not as posts. User decides, if he wants them appear in his FF stream or not - like in your case. - Tibor Holoda
Great List Louis! #2 is my favorite one. - Peter Hoffmann
Tibor, I agree with you (Robert, when are you going to enable Disqus on your blog?). For the blog owner it's much easier to consolidate into one place if they can tie your comments straight to the FriendFeed post itself instead of an entirely new post. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
One more suggestion - tagging. I want to be able to tag individuals, both in my posts, *and* my comments if I'm talking about them or something they might be interested in. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Excellent list. My top priority though, isn't on there - (as per Shey) renaming or separating "Blog" posts, so individuals can hide your blog vs. another "blog" .. I'd also like it easier to determine which services I am/am not showing per individual. Just give me some enable/disable checkboxes on the users page. Strands did this right. - Tim Hoeck
Great suggestions Louis. One clarification on #4 -- most people never see this "default" list because they were either invited by another user, or they import friends from email or facebook. The recommendations are then based entirely on who their other friends are, and will make a lot more sense. - Paul Buchheit
Indeed some good suggestions. My guess is that the reason that #2 (duplicates) has not been implemented yet, is that it is very tricky to do right. If they do manage to implement it and get it right, I will be very impressed. I would not be too surprised though, since Friendfeed has some really sharp people working there. - Robert Felty
Excellent List and some good suggestions in comments as well. I really would like to see 2,3,5,6, & 10. The share on FF bookmarklet should be more like Tumblr's. I would also like to be able to filter my feed to prevent duplicates. I would like to cross post my tumblr to my main blog and twitter but in doing so I create more noise for my FF stream. If I could filter out posts from blog or twitter that started with "XYZ" then I could cross post freely without worrying about FF noise. - tsudohnimh
@Paul, thanks for the comment. I did test by signing up to just one individual, as if they had invited me, and by changing the one person I subscribed to, the recommended friends did change. That said, if you check out recommended friends in Facebook, there's the option to "X" out people you don't want and provide more. Plaxo also does this well. - Louis Gray
Re: #1 and #8 I would like to see profile information that I can search, so I can find FF folks who are geographically near me or who are in my profession or who share a common interest with me. Great post - thanks! - Courtney McGough
Pownce should worry about #10. FF will soon have to worry about cannibalizing its data suppliers, and what that means for ongoing openness. #! & #2 are the big ones with me, and I just don't see why FF enabled fake followers. - Logical Extremes
being 1st or 2nd is all that matters in that particular field.... 3rd placings and below would normally whither away - Mark L via twhirl
I am really getting confused. I just commented on the post. Now I see the comments here as posts. Totally agree with Tibor, messing posts together with comments, be it from Disqus or anywhere else, does not increase transparency. - Jan Horna
#7 - want to make sure i understand that concept of "fake follow" - home feed contains all friends by default & you can then add them to a list/grouping to subdivide them for easier readability - to remove them from the home feed you have to actually de-select them when you add them to a list and then never go to that list again - is that what "fake follow" is - if so, way to much work for no return and only lame*ss self absorbed status mongers will be doing it - imho of course :) - mike "glemak" dunn
#5 - My thought would be to make an invitation-only private room. Wouldn't this solve the partial-distribution problem? - Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell, it could, and some do, but that's a room, and not a feed. Unless the room data permeates the feed, it could get missed. - Louis Gray
I like your list. One other feature I'd like to see is to filter by service in whatever view I am in. - Jeff P. Henderson
The absolute killer feature for me would be, if FF will recognize languages of the posts, or at least to differentiate between english vs. non-english and allow filtering. Would that even be possible or did my brain just farted? :) - Tibor Holoda
(sorry for cross posting) Firstly, I'd like to add to Louis' list the capability to search rooms and then to search inside rooms. Secondly, I must confess that support for a basic profile would be useful. But as always I'd encourage the reuse of data (so importing it from whatever source the user decides). DMs might be usefull, but I haven't felt the need for them so far. - Alex Popescu
I usually don't like to speak about things that are not ready, but this post was catchy. I currently have a prototype that deals with de-duping the resource links. I haven't looked into de-duping pure messages, but my gut feeling is that this might be even easier. I hope to find the time to deploy this app sometime soon. - Alex Popescu
About private messaging: at first I thought this was a silly idea for ff, until I realized that the private messages could just show up where ff items normally show up, e.g. private comments. - j1m
Twitter
FriendFeed
FriendFeed Blog: Preview the new FriendFeed design
FriendFeed Blog: Preview the new FriendFeed design
Show all
August 25 at 4:10 pm - blog.friendfeed.com - Link
This is awesommmmmmmmme !! - Peter Dawson
I ♥ it! :) When? When? When?? - AJ Batac
Likey. - Jonathon
Whoa. - Mark Trapp
Sawheet! "lists" means I can go back to using a single account now, phew! - Jason Wehmhoener
Very Awesome Bret... can't wait. :) http://beta.friendfeed.com/?bc... - Brandon
Totally love the Friends addition. - Chris Baskind
Noice! - Shey
AJ, it's available now at http://beta.friendfeed.com/ - Paul Buchheit
Pretty sweet. - Scott Bulloch via feedalizr
Paul you just beat me to it.. this is aka just like draft.blogger.com :)_ - Peter Dawson
In beta, wow. HOLY WOW this is AWESOME. Are the poster usernames still goign to be links? - Mona N.
Brandon/AJ: no need to wait: use it now at http://beta.friendfeed.com/ and let us know how you like it. - Bret Taylor
so awesome - love the favorites! - Morgan
I've switched and don't know that I'll be going back. Someone lemme know when beta is live so I can hit the normal site! =) - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Awesome! - Steve Rubel
Fabulous! Cannot wait! - Abby Martin
It's beautiful. :) - Daynah
Thanks FriendFeed Team. You guys rock! - AJ Batac
Great features, digging the groups - Cains
wow nice job! It's very clean! - Alan Le
It's the Gmail/Reader interface, but w/ the nav on the right side -- shocked I am, shocked! :-) - Paul Wilcox
Wow! Neat. - Atul Arora
The the new list feature is heck cool... just created test. Wondering how we can share list now :)- - Peter Dawson
A link to cancel a comment with no hack! YAY!!!! - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Mona, poster names are still links they're just styled differently so they don't look like the other links. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
beta.friendfeed is my new friend !! lots of new stuff to play with.. 8-10hrs lag with list data ..but a very very powerful feature. !! Way to GO TEAM FF !! - Peter Dawson
Love it. If this does not go mainstream, I don't know what will. - Vinay | विनय
Coming up next: gamma.friendfeed.com - Jim Norris
I /love/ this! So much shinier. - eve shot first
I still want more of a customizable dashboard view, tho. (kudos on the changes, tho...they ARE nice, and I do appreciate them. :)) - abacab
Thank you for the lists. - Paul Arterburn
Good job guys. I am disappointed you used Peter Astley, and not Rick Astley. Lost opportunity. - Louis Gray
looking great :) - sergiooo
My favorite is how the blog has like 2 comments, and Brett's link to it has almost 30 comments. - Dustin
Yummy* Friendfeeding just got better. - Jonathan (Bad Robot)
This could be very good... but where 's the Rick Roll? - Bill Sodeman
OK: That's a long enough beta period. Let's do it live! - Chris Baskind
I want to start a pool -- (a) first blog to hit techmeme with an article on the re-design, (b) blog with most articles about the re-design (within 2 days starting now) - Wayne Schulz
LOVE IT! - Kyle Lacy
Why not position:fixed the right nav? Like this: http://limpid.nl/lab/css/fixed... - Michael Leggett
The share button no longer appears in my feed. This is counterintuitive. Otherwise, it's been a great experience so far. - Michael Nielsen
Where's the "me" tab? Everything else I LOVE! - Jennifer Van Grove
Michael: if you're viewing your feed from the main address, there is a 'sharing' box up at the top, and the options (comment, photo, link) appear once you begin typing. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
click on your name Jennifer, above right - Tibor Holoda
@Jennifer "My Feed" in the sidebar replaces the "me" tab. And like Tibor said, your name works too. - Dan Hsiao
you launch this right after takeoff from scoble to berlin - coinkydink? :) - Allen Stern
@Stupid Blogger: Thanks, I'd figured that out, was just pointing out what seems like a bug in the current UI. - Michael Nielsen
Looks nice on first glance, and it seems easier now to reach rooms. The friend lists should be a great way to organize my imaginary friends which are basically topic subscriptions. The "Add/ Remove friends" link is confusing at first because when you don't have any friends in the list yet, clicking it will result in nothing (making you wonder if it's broken). The message sharing post form is also confusing because you don't quite know what to enter into it; a link, or a message, or...? The fact that it says "Share a link, message, or photos" doesn't really help. Also wasn't sure how to remove a friend from the home feed after moving them to a special list feed. Took me some seconds to find the Delete List icon, because I was looking near the "Add/ remove friends" link navigation. Wasn't sure if I like you created so many default friend lists for me (personal, favorites, professional), though I guess it may be useful to get the point across. I think I'm liking how names aren't underlined, though not so sure a - Philipp Lenssen
Try Friend recommendations. - Chris Baskind
I love the new info bubble. Super better than the old one :) - AJ Batac
Looks like the logo now clicks to the Friends view, as you'd expect. Same as You + Friends. - Chris Baskind
can't seem to access the beta site: Service Unavailable We encountered an error on your last request. Our service is new, and we are just working out the kinks. We apologize for the inconvenience. - Thomas Hawk
Awesomeness, very useful, and solves the biggest problem of noise reduction! great! - Aditya Kothadiya
awesome! Working now. Anyone know if there is a pagerization greasemonkey script yet for the beta site? - Thomas Hawk
One word: wonderful. - Brandon Titus
thanks for the iteration.. it's a great step forward - Travis Parsons
like the new functions, but not the new layout, it just doesn't look like friendfeed and a bit feel like google groups (caused by the side bar maybe). miss the old layout... - Baron Mok
It is kind of cool! - Steve Chou
great design!! - Ricardo J. Valle
on minor thing: on the main page, Post button and "Show best of: day - week" overlaps if you narrow the browser window. - Dennis Seah
Fantastic! - @daiski
We need a "remove from home feed" button under the friends settings. Or there must be an option that we can choose the list which shows on main page. For example, i want to see only "Professional" friends' feeds on the main page. - Selim Yoruk
Cool new FF! - Igor Poltavskiy
Time stamps for comments? :( - Marcos Messer
Threaded comments??? - Jigar Mehta
So many small details and improvements, make SO much difference. - Martin Añazco
At last, I will be able to add to my feed all the people who subscribe to me, and it won't impact on my main source of infobrainment. It looks nice, too. Looks like you guys have pulled another one out of the bag. +1 - Slippy Lane
looking good friendfeed crew! - Dobromir Hadzhiev
Funny that they turned it on when I was flying to Europe. Looks awesome! - Robert Scoble
that is so frickin' sweet! - Jeremiah Palmer
I'm truly amazed at how good the UI is. The subtle touches like the use of blue links in just the right places or the contextual help like "How does hiding work?". Really great job. I think mioNews just became a little less useful to me, since FF now natively has friend groups. Oh well :P - Patrick Lightbody
please have an option to set font size! - h1ro
It has a great feature in allowing me to separate different people into different lists - that will be worth the whole interface change in itself. I hope that rooms also have embeddable feeds tho! - Justin Long
FF is in a frenzy. This is 16 hrs old and 3rd on my Best of the Week. Congratulations Bret and team. - Russellreno
@Marcos: you can hover your mouse over the comment bubble in front of a comment to get its timestamp. - Dan Hsiao
nice design, keep on! - Alexander Oelling
I just can't imagine investing the time to categorize folks that is why I have not switched to beta yet. - Ruth Ferguson
FriendFeed
“Dude. http://listen.grooveshark.com/ (I have it in Fluid) with Autoplay is massively, MASSIVELY better than Pandora. Try it.”
August 19 at 10:43 am - via Ping.fm - Link
"MASSIVELY"? Skeptical, but looking. - Derrick Burns
Slick. - Hao Chen
Meh, I searched for Zoé and looked at the recos. Daddy Yankee = FTL! Pandora plays better spanish rock for me :) - zo.blue (Zulema)
I am digging the playlisting functionality. Ditto slick interface. - Derrick Burns
interesting interface, but it was not buffering the songs for me. Just sat there. I will have to check again later. - Rob Diana
It's down for me at the moment. I think you've got too many people running to the site, Chris! - Shafiq Jetha via twhirl
Yeah, I think they're definitely having some content distribution issues atm. Every third song won't buffer. But the recommendation engine seems top-notch. - Derrick Burns
I do like the ability to build a playlist. It is stuck at the moment though. Please pretty shiny thing... work... - Yolanda
Fail. Work blocks non-http traffic and http traffic that doesn't go over port 80. Looks like Grooveshark is trying to use one or the other to get the stream. Massive fail. Pandora FTW! - Alex Scoble
I joined and it seems to be working well. How long will this one last? - Sergio Cruz
Checking it out. - Herb
I sent them an email. So hopefully, they can come up with a solution that allows the service to be used here at work. - Alex Scoble
Wow! This can nurse my Muxtape loss & RIAA hate - Dave Q
but do they have an iPhone app? - Bill Sanders
for the fluid users there is a great grooveshark fluid icon on flickr - h1ro
This rocks! :) But missing the small "social" side of Last.FM I think... Maybe I missed something... - Éric Senterre
Google Reader
August 18 at 2:37 am - labnol.org - Link
On my talk on Friday I told my audience that I would never use Powerpoint again because I had worked at Microsoft. That got a HUGE laugh. And I'm serious. Even with tools that make PowerPoint more useful, like this one, I just hate what it's done for presenters. Most use it badly. The ones who use it well are really great, though. It's just that I've sat through so many bad presentations that I'd rather not encourage anyone. - Robert Scoble
I agree, but I think the problem has more to do with a presenter's inability to understand the theater behind what they're doing. PPT does make people lazy, but I have a feeling even if their design department put together a kick ass Flash animation for it, they'd still end up just reading the bullet points. - Ciaoenrico
So what do you use Robert? - Brad Nickel
Brad: I stand up in front of the audience and talk off of an outline and I demo things when appropriate. If I had to use PowerPoint I'd do it like Larry Lessig does it. Lots of photos, very few words. Tell a story with visuals. - Robert Scoble
I moved to images and one thought per slide about 2 years ago. Works beautifully, but your method reminds me of my debate / extemp days. May have to think about going back there. Why do I need an image for every thought, when I am a persuasive public speaker, eh? Thanks. - Brad Nickel
Seriously. Since when did it become okay or useful to paraphrase what you're going to present and then project it on a screen while you present? My company has an Acceptable Usage policy for the Internet; we need one for PowerPoint. - Tim Harding
Yes, use PP in a manner that it doesn't look like PP. Like Paul Isakson's well-known presentation: http://tinyurl.com/37sbht. - Marko Bon
Look at Steve Jobs presentations. He has everything, including the theater. - Roberto Bonini
@Brad Nickel I like to think of the visuals as emotional buoys. Your speaking is the navigation but the reefs, as well as the moorings, need to be given some prominence. - Christopher Harley
I use Powerpoint to keep the flow of information going and to be sure I don't skip something important. Otherwise I might talk the whole hour and a half - being engaging and entertaining - but neglecting some key points.(I teach branding/marketing workshops for small hair salons) - Aura Mae
slides are *not* a script. if you need reminding about what you planned to say, a: use the presenters notes feature and b: this means you need to rehearse more. if you don't know your material inside and out how can you hope to get your message across to the audience? - h1ro
Yeah. I use SlideRocket now, with one eye-popping image and a few words of text per slide. If I have an important set of data to present, I'll put that on a slide--in a recent presentation on the workflow for my podcast, one slide listed all the software I use. But generally it's just an image and a thought. - Brent Newhall
Wonder how Edward Tufte feels about this update? He was always one to rail on PowerPoint (and especially the presentation style that it fostered.) Does this move presentation style in the right direction, or wrong direction? (I understand it allows you to "drill into" a slide to show information contributing to that slide... which is hard to do ad-hoc with linear slides.) - Wade Dorrell
Presenters notes only work if you are standing at your computer. For a workshop where the presenter is moving about the crowd, they are useless. Moving to the next slide is the cue to move to the next topic. Perhaps a workshop (interacting with the audience) is different than a speech which could be memorized? (I can rehearse my content, but it is hard to rehearse the unexpected input from each audience.) - Aura Mae
I still think LaTeX is the best for presentations: writing one couldn't be quickier, and the result, without being a "show", is accessible, readable, good looking and professional. - ☂Marcos Marado via fftogo
this is like blaming wordpress for sucky blog postings and spam blogs. just because it is the most used software does not make it the reason for sucky presentations. (btw I just ordered the office 2007 although i despise the ribbon and what it does to my productivity. it is just that everything other offering of office software is so not on par with needed features for smart working. then again i am a power user who knows what she is doing.) - Nicole Simon
@aura you can never anticipate every possible audience interaction but depending on the content, you can use questions or interactions in an adaptive manner in order to bring the conversation back to your main talking points. you are on stage - you are in control of the conversation. if you are giving a presentation not a workshop. if it's a workshop style event then the rules change. if it's a presentation, you are there to move the audience to understand what you are trying to share - h1ro
@marcos the tool shouldn't matter - i think that people should practice talking with no props or visual aids at all like @robertscoble was mentioning. if you can't tell a story without a 50ft visual aid you might want to rethink your strategy :) - h1ro
@Nicole it doesn't make PowerPoint the reason for bad presentations, but whether the gravity it exerts as popular software has a bad (or good, or no) effect on presentation as a whole is a debate we can have. - Wade Dorrell
+1 h1ro. amen to that. ppt is a crutch. - .LAG
I agree. I enjoy using PowerPoint for instructional pres but I never use it alone, its usually in connection with Camtasia or Impatica. But I've noticed that I will hear people say "O, yeah, I can do PowerPoint" and then you do see what they mean: It's every thing that Edward Tufte warns against and more. It just seems to me that they are not enjoying what you can do with the tool. They don't even explore it. And yes, most importantly you have to have a story to tell. You've got to storyboard. - Melanie Reed
Robert's talk at the New Media Expo was far more engaging because he *didn't* use PPT. - Chris Luckhardt
@Chris Luckhardt ...because Robert didn't use any presentation software at all, or because he did use software but it wasn't PPT? - Wade Dorrell
Wade: I didn't use any presentation software at all. Right. - Robert Scoble
@Robert Unclear whether the "Right" was sarcasm or affirmation. Thanks for the reply. Anyway, do you use any kind of resource to share data spoken & unspoken? (For example, do you have a person post to FF the data/URLs during a presentation? Do you do premeditated handouts of some of the data/URLs you think you'll mention?) Certainly someone in the audience can capture this for you, if it's a big enough audience or an important enough talk it's almost guarenteed... but then that person is a stenographer, not a conversation participant. - Wade Dorrell
but it is a MS only solution and not applicable for Mac Office 2008 :-( - Torsten Eckert
YouTube
HTC Dream
Play
August 15 at 2:30 pm - youtube.com - Link
Looks slooooooow.... :( - John Denver
oh look, it's a bad iphone copy - i must rush out and preorder - h1ro
delicious
August 8 at 12:02 pm - gelaskins.com - Link
I love my GelaSkin! And the matching screensaver for the iPhone too! :) - Brandice
so which gelaskin did you get for your iPhone? i just got the escher hands one - very nice - h1ro
I got the library one, and then I got the redhead girl one for my 17" Macbook pro - Felicia
very nice. they really do look cool, don't they? - h1ro
What a crazy random happenstance < / dork > I was about to get the library one and now I feel the need to be more original XD - Irrel
YOu can get the library one too! We don't live in the same city and I bet lots of other ppl have it too! - Felicia
I know, I've been staring at it since you posted the link. It's oh so very pretty, how can I resist? - Irrel
I can't get the library one, because I'm a librarian... - Andrea
I think that's even more reason to get it, Andrea! =D I ended up getting the Steampunk one <3 - Irrel
Google Reader
August 7 at 6:54 pm - dailyblogtips.com - Link
Impressive collection of multiple examples to prove the point. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
They really need to work on their grammer its "Becoming" and it isn't becoming completely worthless it is worthless. - Nicholas James
"Becoming?" - shelisrael1
I'm with Shel -- was Alexa ever worthwhile? - Brian Sullivan
Yes, it is really worthless... The new structure didn't work at all.. But are there any alternatives? - Tuncay Tuncer
Where/how does Alexa get its data? - Gabe
Is Alexa still ignoring browsers other than IE? Because that would certainly explain the huge discrepancies. It still gives an insight about how the mainstream thinks. - Vincent van Wylick
@Vincent van Wylick I don't think so, toolbar is the criteria and I didn't see any problem with firefox - Tuncay Tuncer
This was true 2 years ago. - Mike Reynolds
My mistake, thanks for the correction. - Vincent van Wylick
becoming? already was there - h1ro
No, it actually has negative worthfulness (because realizing you have no useful stats at all can be better than having misleading stats). - Philipp Lenssen
I've detailed this online before but I'll repeat it here: I was looking into Alexa rankings years ago (between Sep 2004 May 2005). Just by using the Alexa IE toolbar, I managed to get a *non-existent* website (i.e. a random domain which wasn’t even registered) to rank around 1,500,000. (It entered at around 3,000,000 and took 2 weeks to climb to 1,500,000.) That might not sound like much, but it’s a higher ranking than most people’s personal home pages and plenty of “serious” company websites! During the same period, my personal website jumped from a ranking of 1,800,000 to around 300,000 in just one month. After another two months, it was ranking at around 100,000! - Tony Ruscoe
I also have access to two sites (the site where I work at and my own site http://oyeme.com). Alexa consistently misreports the traffic to both and since their "upgrade" they even dropped Oyeme from top 100,000 when it gets more users/pageviews than my work's site. I say this to everyone I know. - Jorge Escobar
FriendFeed
“Downtime. Noooooooooo!”
August 5 at 4:33 am - Link
yes... twitter comes to friendfeed. - Ⓝ〄ⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂ〄Ⓝ
:( I hope we get some feedback from the FF guys on what happened... - Vlado Handziski
my guess is too many people. Scoble seems to think this is a better infrastructure or some bullshit like that... but my guess is that all these nets have the same problem of popularity stresses. we'll see now won't we? - Ⓝ〄ⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂ〄Ⓝ
it will be really interesting to see if FF tell us all what happend - h1ro
@h1ro, "A power failure took out a number of important machines. - Paul Buchheit" , http://friendfeed.com/e/299159... , third comment. - Hassan Ibraheem
see the comment here: http://friendfeed.com/e/299159... it was a power failure - Glenn Slaven
ok... let us hope they are telling the truth. I like it here. I don't want to move to identi.feed ...that was a joke - Ⓝ〄ⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂ〄Ⓝ
power failure, good explanation - Vezquex இ
FriendFeed
August 2 at 12:33 am - venturebeat.com - via Reshare - Link
the interesting question would be how much did they mortgage their future for? - h1ro
Blog
July 30 at 10:59 am - scobleizer.com - Link
I like the new Scoble--back and better than ever... - mabisa
That's why I call this the age of "instant analysis". In the rush to be first, people aren't taking time to do their full review or comparisons, to see how something fits. I didn't write about Feedly or Toluu, for example, until weeks/months of checking them out, learning from the developers and helping to tell the story. It's rare that I'll post something along with the rest of the crowd, because I know I don't have the biggest megaphone. I'd rather talk about things nobody else is covering. - Louis Gray
Hey, you are on a roll here ;-) Good job, keep those passionate posts coming, that's what I like best about your blog. One thought that comes to mind after reading it is whether you should be looking for new tech companies or technologies. I have found that engaging with a passionate entrepreneur or geek or whatever always leads to great insights. You might try (although you do that often) to put a little more focus on the person in the story you tell, instead of the technological capabilities that are being developed. Why is he building it, what makes him tick, where did the idea come from etc. ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Huge thumbs-up, Robert. - Chris Baskind
Alexander: good point. I just had a conversation with an HP exec on their mobile team and he gave me lots of behind the scenes info about why Microsoft, Motorola, and Nokia (and HP) were struggling to match the iPhone. Unfortunately the PR teams rarely let people speak forthrightly about how they are getting messed up on camera. - Robert Scoble
The Cuil launch is a good example of the limits of PR, which you touched on in this post. - David Mullen via twhirl
Agreed. But you should be able to catch a few off-guard in a bar or so. Or get a colleague to distract those dreaded PR guys ;-) We need access to the people behind the PR wall, that's where the interesting stuff takes place. I suspect that will be easier if you drop by at a time no PR event or launch is planned ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
(slippery fingers) When done well, PR can stir up awareness and incite trial, but the product has to deliver. The best PR in the world can't overcome product or service exeriences that don't live up to the promise. Every review - whether on blogs, twitter, plurk, etc. - on Cuil was negative. Maybe they should have let it get stronger before coming out the gate swinging so hard. Mahalo was a good example to cite. - David Mullen via twhirl
Alexander: the problem is, if I do that, I'll get people fired. I've gotten people fired in the past for speaking without PR approval. I'm not here to get people fired. It doesn't serve anyone well. - Robert Scoble
Well done and good post. I don't do PR for large companies. I never have and this is the reason why. I hate the entire outlook on how to go about it. Holding people back from what's really going on, hyping up new services and products that can't deliver, barring others from speaking to someone they *should* speak to...all of that is why I normally stay away from big companies. Your post is a perfect example of why. - Candace Holly
Fair point Robert, that really sucks and isn't worth it. I do wonder if that would also hold for small startups though. They probably do not even have large PR teams (I hope). - Alexander van Elsas
Robert, thanks for going back to your passion, your opinion. That and the access that you get at companies can lead to some truly interesting stories. I find it a shame that Cuil had so many issues out of the gate. It seems like things got rushed because of the PR they were getting. Hype is definitely a double-edged sword. - Rob Diana
Alexander: startups are usually easier to get inside of and get some real information out of, yes. That's because they are usually attention starved and realize that getting their message out can only help them at that point. That said, if a startup employee goes off message it's because they are really screwed up and don't deserve to get the attention in the first place. And, even there, if an employee goes off message or talks out of school, they'll get fired too. - Robert Scoble
Yes, but here lies an opportunity to talk to the person, and get to understand what drives him. The technology is probably cool, but I am always curious at why they even started to develop it. There are bound to be some great people to be found like that. I see that in the startup environment I work in right now. Passionate people! ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Great post Robert. I'm surprised you didn't see more about Evernote. I saw quite a few blog posts about it right after the app store went live. And a few people here on FriendFeed have raved about it (Steve Rubel comes to mind). - Robert Seidman
I think that PR can serve a valid function but we don't do ourselves any favors when we accept their messages at face value unless a strong trust has been built over time. - Mark Dykeman
Seidman: I saw lots about it, but didn't try it until someone showed it to me face-to-face. I'm actually not a good text learner. It's why I didn't do well in school, but got top scores on SAT. - Robert Scoble
Mark: the problem is that if you want to be part of the Digg/Techmeme/Reddit launch crowd you MUST be among the first people to talk about something. If you depend on traffic that forces you into that game. - Robert Scoble
Well, according to what I've heard, those services don't drive much traffic anyway, so why bother? - Jason Carreira
Robert, are you going to be posting the full video of the interview with the iPhone owning hp guy? - h1ro
Robert: yes, I understand the point about being the first to break news and the mad rush to publish. It's better to be wrong than late because many times people will forget (or ignore) that you were wrong. That's why I like your proposed approach better. - Mark Dykeman
Robert: Yuo ARE the PR bandwagon maestro. That's a problem. - Dennis Howlett via twhirl
On a somewhat related note, someone has taken Yahoo BOSS and created a Cuiil-clone. http://friendfeed.com/e/0f7e9f... - Atul Arora
Agree with mabisa and gregory lent. Nicely put both of you. - Roberto Bonini
I think I'll try Evernote. If its good enough to impress Scoble, its got to be pretty special. - Denton Gentry
best post in awhile (don't take that the wrong way ;) ) - Jeff Douglass
+1 mabisa. well put. great post. - Elliott Ng
Google Reader
July 30 at 7:46 am - news.cnet.com - Link
Hasbro really messed up in the way the handled the Scrabulous situation and we are just seeing a small part of the backlash - Gabriel Biguria
No, Scrabulous messed up in how they handled the "oops, we're stealing Hasbro's IP" situation and in the "Hasbro offered us $10 million when they didn't have to" issue. - Jason Carreira
@jasoncarreira do you have a citation for the 10 million figure? - h1ro
I wouldn't be surprised if this story is simply Hasbro's way of becoming the "victim". They have a lot of people pretty pissed at them and they realize they need some sympathy. - Shawn Farner via twhirl
I seriously doubt Hasbro offered $10 mil. That would be an insane valuation. Hasbro is legally in the clear for their actions, but they're living a PR and Marketing nightmare because of them. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
this report links to the NYT story they turned down $10M http://www.readwriteweb.com/ar... - Jeff Quinton
@Jeff thanks, I couldn't remember where I read it - Jason Carreira
Blog
July 30 at 6:24 am - jkontherun.com - Link
waiting for the retina scan...do those fingerprint readers work effectively? - Aura Mae
I always said I was going to try 1password. I guess their idea to give the iPhone client away for free was a smart one. I downloaded the iPhone client and almost immediately downloaded the local client. - Dan
I store all of my passwords in Firefox. I have never found a use for password management software - Mike Fruchter
Not only do I store all my pw's in firefox, but they are usually all the same thing. Unless it's the bank or something. I think life would go on if somebody hacked my Myspace profile :) - Rahsheen ™
I want to use 1Password for everything, but you can't define your own wallet items, which really stinks. Instead, I use Wallet (url: http://waterfallsw.com/wallet/). Cross-platform clients would be nice, but the only ones I've found are really, really, junky. - Mark Trapp
+1 for 1password here - h1ro
I let Firefox hold them for me (using a Master password) but I store them all in Outlook as contacts. Probably not the best method, but it works. - Shayna
@Aura Mae - yeah the fingerprint readers work well, my computer has one and it's great for logging into windows. The software sucks for web passwords though, but that could be just my system. - Royce Mathew
I use PasswordSafe - Bob
KeePass, because I can use the same file on my Windows PCs, my MacBook, and my Windows Mobile phone. It also runs on other systems. - MiɳiMagɘ is EnderMage via NoiseRiver
RoboForm and RoboForm2Go. The latter fits on a USB flash drive, encrypts its contents, and works on just about any PC with both IE and Firefox. Worth every penny. - Ed Bott
i used spash id for phone and desktop untill a fatal crash ruined everything. now its all in firefox or in notes on my phone - nick
I may need to try KeePass. Works with PC, Mac, Linux and mobiles. Good find, MiniMage; thx! - Kevin C. Tofel
Another vote for 1Password. Fantastic app. - Wes Justice
1Password all the way - James Cooper
I use Myvidoop for all my passwords - Jean-Charles
1password - Jamie
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