Report: USA likely to suffer biological attack by 2013/before a nuclear one. Happy Tuesday everyone! - Jason Calacanis
Ahhhh.....Bioterrorism.... if you really want to be scared, read this exec summary from the Rand Corporation ca. 2000 - http://tinyurl.com/5g2439 . just a note: it seems the US has spent BILLIONS in the past 10 years on various aspects of the issue.. so its not a forgotten issue. - SnakeDoc
That sounds like a plan, especially if you allergic to headaches. - Judy Jones
Sounds like Jason speaks from experience. Cutting back sucks. - Louis Gray
You are a bigger man than me, I have a Diet Coke in my hand already at 10:00am. - Ambar Pansari
Think of all the aspartam you are getting, and you´ll be straight back on regular coke. - Thomas Bøhm
I kind of miss the days when breakfast was a diet coke and a cigarette in the car. Now it's just the diet coke. An improvement but still a ways to go - Riona MacNamara
I went cold turkey, worked for me. The trick for me is to drink plenty of liquid (water) and have a little sugar (like a candy) to satisfy my sweet tooth. I have a soda on the weekends. So far, i've been free for 4 months. - David Bisset (sn)
"Actually, it was very well designed product from a user perspective with many features Twitter still lacks: media support (i.e. you could host MP3s), translation of youtube/flickr URLs into actual embeds, and threaded comments.
Why would they shut it down? Seems to me like something your could make a second run at." - Jason Calacanis
I wonder what kindof feeling Arrington gets when he lists new companies into the deadpool...is he gleeful, bitchy, rubbing his hands in glee? I have this image of him going thru this whole ceremony everytime this happens ;). - Mohomed=genieyclo
Awesome Video, Joi!!! Love the shots of you burning the leaves, hanging out in your backyard, and the persimmon at the end is gorgeous. Oh, and the momiji is beautiful too. :-) Great video. So what did you end up using for your workflow? - David Sifry
"ugh... what misinformation in this poorly researched article. Tesla is applying for a loan not a bailout, and its from a 2007 fund for alternative energy vehicles... has nothing to do with the bailouts. http://calacanis.com/2008/12/0... ..." - Jason Calacanis
Jason, read your post and agree with most of your points. Not sure why this NYT writer felt the need to trash such a promising company and technology. - Jeff P. Henderson
Amen, Jason. Being an innovator is never cheap, nor is being an early adopter. Companies like Tesla and customers like you are what move new technologies downstream. Stross was dead wrong. - Rafe Needleman
Yes, same here, saw it on FriendFeed first. Also, interesting that O'Reilly went from like (in the URL) to love (in the title). Guess he fell in love while writing it up ;) - AJ Kohn
"I don't have time to wade through the comments" - That's kind of boring. - todd
todd: I knew someone over on FriendFeed would see that. But I understand what he's saying. - Robert Scoble
I guess @timoreilly is only interested in letting people know what he thinks and does, instead of interacting with them. it makes sense why he likes Twitter and not Friendfeed then. - Alejandro S.
he's a ceo of a big powerful co. he likes to tell people what to do and then disengage. maybe not right, but generally the only way to be a ceo of a big powerful co! - Brendten Eickstaedt
"hiring CEOs who don't have experience in the internet business to run top three portals is a trend you know... i think i know of one other." - Jason Calacanis
@Jason: totally agree! We already had Terry Samuel. Y! needs to eliminate all the crap and focus on profitable activities - Mike
for a lot people FB is FF :-) (and more) - Luca Conti
On functionality then friendfeed would be just a temporary step to get your ff over to facebook. I.e. Render FF stream in Facebook stream. - Andrew Baron
Not feeling it. FB feels heavy. FF feels lightweight. - Nick Reynolds
FB is very closed and demands too much. FF is very open and demands little. - Logical Extremes
I do pipe my FF stream to FB, but still live here. More interaction, etc. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons
FB? Heck no! I hate being restricted to interacting with people that I might already know. I like the fact that I can meet new people on FF that I might never have otherwise encountered. - Stupid Ninja (aka Tina)
Heck no! Two totally separate things to me. - Rochelle
Who cares. Not a single person on my FF is my friend on FB. You guys are not 'real friends' but I do enjoy your company. - Aaron deMello
No, I think it's simply an different opportunity...it's all about usage. - Enriqueta
@Aaron People use things differently. My online, professional, and personal lives all overlap, so many of my friends are on multiple services. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons
i use friendfeed for following news and links. I use facebook to see what my friends are doing. I don't see how facebook could replace what friendfeed offers me. - Alex Williams
Well even for me FF is a more active community, but I wonder if that will change? FB is picking up a lot of momentum it seems with the people I know and FF seems to be somewhat stable in growth. I thought FF would of picked up more steam by now myself. - Andrew Baron
FF is the place for me. Fb is where most of my immediate family communicates and that's fine. FF is where i get to expand my community; challenge my thinking; and learn new things. and that's fine, too. - MikeAmundsen
@Andrew It's always this way for early adoption. Twitter is just starting to get real mainstream adoption...my sister-in-law brought it up at Thanksgiving and I knew Twitter was now going to become normal, so FF will come next. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons
Andrew do they have an API like FriendFeed? - Dave Winer
There is no possible way Facebook can replace FriendFeed. The primary reason for this is that they are two different things. For instance, you don't even have a profile page here on FriendFeed and on Facebook, you can only "follow" people who let you. I don't even think you can interact with people outside of your circle. I would also agree that FB is a little too heavy and complicated for what I do here on FF. - ♫ Rahsheen ™ ★
Andrew: FB is a different animal. It has 500+ employees. FF has, what, 13? FB has 120+ million users. FF has a few hundred thousand. But, the quality of conversations is much better here and there are no walls to this garden (Google can search it) and there are no stupid rules and no arbitrary limits to how many friends you can have. But, you will find me in both places. - Robert Scoble
I never could find a need for FB - barely ever check in - BEX
@Robert and @Dave I agree on the shortcomings of FB. Though FB seems to be evolving. The biggest difference for me, is the subject matter of the posts - they are much more newsworthy here as @alex stated. FB is much more social talk. But that has been changing; The FB iphone app separates out the personal from the news and more and more people seem to be posting news links. - Andrew Baron
Andrew: wait until you see the video we shot last week at Facebook. I agree that Facebook is interesting again. But NOT as a competitor to FriendFeed. Zuckerberg has other things in his sights. - Robert Scoble
nothing will replace friendfeed in my life. NOTHING. - Monique
via fftogo
I totally disagree. Facebook is ok for some things, but it cannot touch FF. - Mathew Ballard
While I admit that my usage on Facebook has increased heavily recently, I think of Facebook as a tool for a more personal relationship, but there is little way of gaining new friends. With FriendFeed, it is easy to find new people with interests and hold discussions. I think as long as FriendFeed can excel in providing discussion, it will be hard to have an equal. - James Mowery
via twhirl
I'm finding myself using Facebook way less. I let the FF app insert everything into my wall and just use it to present that stuff to my friends that aren't on FF. - matthew john ernisse
I definitely feel it. But only because I feel bombarded with information, it's coming from all around me, and FriendFeed is just not that useful to me. It's cool, but why bother with it when I can talk to my friends on Facebook? None of my friends are on FriendFeed. Really other than people into this stuff, who has time for FF? - Josue Salazar
Andrew, I am just the opposite -- I believe the FriendFeed is replacing the need for Facebook and FF is not draconian like Fb. - Robert Miller
I have to agree worryingly............................... - Yatin Vadhia
the reason i use friendfeed is so i can update facebook with all i do without having to go to it every day... - Samuel Lewis
via twhirl
I don't see them as the same thing at all. I've got to keep up both since I have different types of friends on both services and overall both serve different types of needs. My friends from high school don't use the Internet in the same way that the folks over here on FF do. - Lynne d Johnson
Nope. I was just thinking last night how Facebook feels kind of sterile and borring to me, while Friendfeed is friendly, easy, and engaging. I go to Facebook a few times a week out of a sense of obligation, but I can never think of anything to do there. - Laura Norvig
No - Facebook has been wasting my time. Sterile and ZERO interaction! I should be evangelizing Friendfeed. - Jannifer Stoddard
i think you're right... i'm finding as many comments to twitter reposts on Facebook as on Friendfeed. Folks are spending a LOT more time in Facebook thanks to the comment thread feature they riffed off of FF. - Jason Calacanis
Nah. Real-time there is no good. To me it is just a robust contacts list. I like Facebook a lot but it will not be a replacement for me. - Rolf Schewe
FB is just starting to have more user interaction with regard to comments... YES, FB is gaining steam, but it will be a LONG time before it replaces need for FriendFeed! FB is too limiting / locked down; whereas, FF is more open and easier to collaborate / open - Susan Beebe (Santa Claus)
friendfeed has a better feature set for discussion on activity, but for now Facebook has the users. I find I spend much more time on Facebook because most of my contacts use it, only a few people I know in real life use FF now. How do you get people other than early adopters to start using a new service? - Mike English
There was news last week regarding Twitter possibly turning down around half a billion dollars from Facebook (though granted, mostly stock). Can you imagine what that would be like if Facebook bought Twitter? I can't say for sure that it would be a bad thing. If FB allowed Twitter to use the API's etc. Maybe FB could buy FF. http://tinyurl.com/5r5zxg - Andrew Baron
I recently discovered FriendFeed, and like it a lot. I use it in conjunction with Facebook, but I can't imagine FB replacing the need for FF. If anything, I think that FF will grow as more people get on board. - Joseph Grabowski
Don't worry. Us diehards are here for life :) - Charlie Anzman
FF allows you to comment and interact with ppl outside your network, which is cool. - Sahil Parikh
no, it's just you. Friendfeed rules - David Jacobs
No way. Facebook does have the Import capability to an extent, but the people who understand the coolness of what you post are on FriendFeed. - Shevonne Polastre
Facebook replacing FriendFeed? Wha? Nah - Kol Tregaskes
My Facebook, FrendFeed and Twitter networks are all somewhat different. - Mike Reynolds
I informed my friends and deleted my fb account when I noticed how it should be. - Thomas Bøhm
"i’d suggest taking it down, as joking about slavery is not funny." - Jason Calacanis
Simple fix. Just take out the word "slaves" and all is very funny. The image of JC as taskmaster IS VERY FUNNY! But the references to slavery likely not. - James D Kirk
Crowdsourcing does not always provide the answers that you expect. I wonder what would be on the front page of the NY Times if popularity was the determining factor for what stories got published. Celebrity gossip? If so, would they be obliged to hire Perez Hilton as their managing editor? People also tend to not like depressing news like people dying in wars, world hunger, pollution, etc. Bury those stories? Or maybe Dave is thinking that a paper like the Times would or should not cater to the masses and only consider the opinions of smart users or users who share his values. - scott anderson
Crowdsourcing? Who said anything about crowdsourcing? Who said newspapers should start editing the front page based on popularity? Where did the phrase "cater to the masses" come from? Where are you getting these things from? "If you want to keep their interest, you need to be interested in them." That was his main point. Does that say "edit the front page by market survey?" Jeez-a-roni. - Jay Rosen
Slippery slope. How do you get there from here? Quoting from Dave ... "it was largely considered unethical for a reporter or editor to know which sections of the paper were most read by users of the paper. If the reporter knew, the story goes, he or she might be influenced by peoples' interests in deciding what to write about." Dave indicated that this type of thinking was a bug. I disagree. - scott anderson
It's often commonly known information that some parts of the magazines are more often read than others (while that information is based on the small sample of tests). Anyways, in most newspapers most commonly read page is comics. ;) - Daniel Schildt
Where's the switch? The switch that causes people to hear Dave Winer saying, "listen to users" and yet what the brain receives is "abandon all judgment, all intelligence to whatever people tend to consume." Where is that switch? - Jay Rosen
Jay, it's the same switch that flipped when people told us at Salon a decade ago that we should never look at our traffic reports because it would corrupt our judgment as journalists and turn us into bottomfeeding scum. - Scott Rosenberg
Yes, the same switch; and I recall that battle pretty well. By the way, is "slippery slope" considered a thought? I mean do people still think of that as an argument: "once you start down, the only option is complete loss of balance until you hit the bottom?" To me that seems more like an escape from the necessity of having to think about something, but maybe shouting "slippery slope" at a problem still sounds like a thought to some folks. If so, it's kind of sad, no? - Jay Rosen
My most popular blog post is a throw-away picture of Bruce Lee beating up Chuck Norris. Knowing my stats, do I keep posting Lee/Norris stuff? No. But the next ten most-pop posts are about science, and I notice what style and format appeals to ppl, and I may slightly modify my writing style of posts about science - making them better because of this information. - Bora Zivkovic
I can process the readers' info and not go down the slippery slope. I am still in charge, but feedback - direct through comments and indirect from traffic stats - improves my writing. Newspapers can do the same. - Bora Zivkovic
Right. "Slippery slope" can mean "pack appropriate footwear, move with caution" but too often people use it to mean "that's scary, let's just sit tight." And there *are* sometimes piles of dazed bruised people at the bottom of the hill. - Scott Rosenberg
Maybe this is what it is. When people make that equation, "to listen is to cave," they are not making an observation about listening at all. They are making an observation about other people, what scott anderson called "the masses." The masses lack discipline, the masses want entertainment, the masses want Britney Spears-- not news. Most important: the masses are not me, the observer of other people and their decadent habits. And so to challenge the equation, listening=caving, is to take "the masses" away. - Jay Rosen
But "masses" are interested in stuff other than Britney Spears. Sometimes they don't know it because all the media serves them is Britney Spears: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/... - Bora Zivkovic
You never know what you'll learn if you listen, that's what's really stupid about arguing about whether you should listen or not. Maybe the people who want to say something to you might just make the difference between driving off the cliff and finding a new future. Maybe it's keeping *you* from having the great idea that cracks the nut. - Dave Winer
BTW, when did listening become "listening in the aggregate." If you know anything about me, you know that I don't think of users as couch potatoes, passive participants. In the 80s when I ran a software company, we used to design regcards so as to solicit original thoughts, not just box-clicking. When a new batch of regcards came in I grabbed them and studied them for interesting comments. When I had a question, I called them and asked. It's also good for business if people get that you care what they think - Dave Winer
BTW, you might have to listen to 100 users to get 1 good idea. In 1986, I had a meeting with Guy Kawasaki when he worked at Apple. I showed him an early version of one of our products, we had thrown the kitchen sink into it, every half-baked R&D idea, cause our company was failing and this was our last chance. One idea intrigued him. He said everyone at Apple was hand-designing foils to print on Laserwriters (they were new then). He took a piece of paper and drew a box around one of our pages, and... - Dave Winer
asked if we could do that. Of course we could, and we did, and we immediately sold 1K copies of the product for Apple people, but more importantly, they were so excited by it, they in turn sold many more thousands to their customers, and our company went from being in the brink of shutting down to gushing cash. All because (drum roll) we listened to a user. Ask Guy if you don't believe me, he's on Twitter. - Dave Winer
Once again, this leaves me wondering how journalism manages to be arrogant without being awesome. (The profession, not so much the people that practice it -- one suspects they've elevated a rough draft of their core values to a religion, and now can't escape from it.) - j1m
The thinking behind the slippery slope comment was that newspapers are a business that exist to make a profit. The last season of "The Wire" provides a good example of what I was referring to. Once you start down that road, these temporary bailouts become more seductive. - scott anderson
Also, I never indicated that users should not be listened to. I was referring to the actual quote related to ethics from Dave's article that you obfuscated in your twitter post. - scott anderson
Lastly, for the record I am not a journalist. I don't even claim to be a good writer. I am a user of the news attempting to communicate my concerns related to this topic to those that in my opinion appear to have a self serving agenda. - scott anderson
Who is it that you're saying has a self-serving agenda? I like the "in my opinion" part. In my opinion your mother wears army boots! Heh. - Dave Winer
@Dave: You and Jay. I believe that blogging in all its forms has a valuable role to play in our society. However, I also believe that MSM publications that maintain strict journalistic ethics, including accountability, also provide great value and that the two should not be mixed or try to emulate each other. - scott anderson
Well there you have it. You should make such accusations carefully and with evidence and back it up. What exactly is my supposed undisclosed (and unknown to me, btw) conflict of interest? (Can't wait to hear this.) - Dave Winer
@scott "The last season of "The Wire" provides a good example" of a talented auteur unfortunately working out old grievances in public, spinning an entirely unbelievable tale of willful ignorance of total disregard for the truth. Simon also managed to transplant a 1995 newspaper into the current day, an organization that apparently has never heard of the internet, either for reporting the news or checking it out before starting up the presses. - tim windsor
And I'm with Scott Rosenberg. Slippery slopes call for greater caution, but not total avoidance. - tim windsor
I've seen this careful to not listen approach in interviews, too. It seems like a lot of journalists only ask questions they already know the answer to. Of course, they want the expert being interviewed to give the answer, but they might as well be putting words in his/her mouth. - Gordon Vaughan
The line between listening and trusting your own judgment and expertise is a challenging one, no matter how you cut it. But I agree that the "slippery slope" argument is nonsense. If a journalist lacks the judgment to avoid the slide, h probably doesn't deserve the title. - Pete Forsyth
Also, @davewiner -- I've been trying to participate in this discussion on your blog, but my comments have not been making it past moderation. Can you take a look? - Pete Forsyth
It's unfortunate that the intent of my original question has gotten lost in this discussion. I blame myself for being too flippant and not tying the point I was attempting to make more directly to the exact issue I had a problem with. I'll try to rephrase the question again in a more precise manner. Dave was informed by the Berkeley J-School crowd that they believed it was unethical to use the data about which sections of a newspaper are most popular in decisions papers make about where to invest resources. - scott anderson
I responded to Jay's post because he had generalized and distorted the opinion of the "J-School crowd". In hindsight I should have called him out on this and left it at that. All of my comments have been directed to how this specific type of data is collected and used and this issue alone. In regards to the more general question of whether newspapers are listening to their users or not, they typically have letters to the editor sections. I'm assuming that these are read by the editors but I could be wrong. Dave's advice to newspapers has typically been to invite bloggers into newsrooms, which I see as a self-serving agenda. - scott anderson
That said, for those that believe it is beneficial to use the data about which sections of newspapers are more popular than the others, how should this data be compiled and applied in an ethical manner? Do you survey all the potential users of a paper like the NY Times (aka the masses, the aggregate, etc.) or do you isolate a sample group based on some criteria? What is that criteria? Once you have this data and know what type of content is popular and what is not, how do you leverage that data to benefit users and not end up becoming a tabloid that values circulation numbers above all else? - scott anderson
The problem with the letters to the editor is that they are designed to protect the existing power relations. See this dust-up about the inappropriateness of letters to the editor in science publications: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/... - Bora Zivkovic
There are much better ways to listen to the readership than letters to the editor. News outlets have many opportunities -- some more legitimate than others -- to shape the public discourse and influence public opinion. In reporting, in the structuring of the medium, in the archiving of information. Proactively seeking out feedback is important -- and is commonplace in other industries. Some approaches clearly have ethical implications, while others don't. - Pete Forsyth
@davewiner If your claim is simply "news outlets should listen to their users," it seems there isn't much for anyone to argue with. I think that's pretty uncontroversially true. However, it's seemed at several points that you are taking a stronger position than that. - Pete Forsyth
I don't equate listening to caving or that listening will result in bottom feeders but I do not discount the effects that come from the pressures related to being a profitable business, especially in tough economic times. A blog or a niche publication is a much different animal than a news corporation. Are there specific processes or firewalls that exist in the news industry that provide for publishing information that may not be popular but useful to society or only useful to a small segment of readers within the context of a for profit business? - scott anderson
I think knee-jerk or reactive answers come out of a specific context, and to suggest that news organizations are dumb or naive misses a more nuanced point. The kind of influence that advertising directors etc. sometimes try to exert over editors can be extreme, and so editors' developing a tin ear to that sort of thing can, in many cases, be a very good thing. It's important hear feedback, but it's also important to not waste one's time hearing repetitive feedback that you can't ethically act upon. - Pete Forsyth
When Obama said he was not against all wars, just "dumb wars" people seemed able to handle it. Their heads did not explode from having to make a distinction. So...There's smart listening and dumb listening. I think everyone can handle that too-- including everyone looking in on this thread. - Jay Rosen
Jay, I think we all agree that the distinction is important. The point I'm trying to make is that resistance to input is not always, or necessarily, a bad thing. That is a starting point for finding a solution though, not an end-point. Trusting journalists to have good judgment implies respecting their right to say "in my judgment, this particular feedback is garbage." - Pete Forsyth
As an aside, I have been blocked from commenting on Dave Winer's blog, for reasons that aren't clear to me. That's why I haven't been involved in the discussion over there -- not a lack of interest. - Pete Forsyth
