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Alexander van Elsas posted a message on Twitter

“At the office, with a beautiful sunset accompanying me. Coffee in the hand, going through some feeds”

Monday at 11:58 pm - Link

I obviously need more coffee, the sun is rising here ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted a link

What would you wish to happen at the end of today?

November 18 at 12:03 am - Link

From the site "We asked the same question and it took us somewhere new. Gone were the lazy days of summer. A cool breeze swept the streets with leaves under foot and the familiar hustle of the city…welcome to autumn in New York. It’s a simple question. And the answers can lead us anywhere. So go ahead, ask yourself… New locations (and questions) coming soon." - Intriguing - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

Obama proves that there is nothing more powerful than an engaged community

November 5 at 12:07 am - Link

Atul Arora, randulo, Rob Diana and Ole Begemann liked this

Neil Vineberg commented: "Obama took everything to another level…including raising perhaps $700 million from an unprecedented 3.2 million donors (including myself). He inspired hope, indeed, and mobilized Americans to actionize a belief that every vote counts and if we mobilize we can ensure that our nation reflects the will of ALL people - not just Bush/Cheney and rich Republicans. I believe Obama’s election also signals a change for Good that will benefit the entire world. Now patience is needed as he gets his governance team put in place." - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

How 475Bln customer views can lead to ZERO value

October 17 at 12:15 am - Link

Atul Arora, Mike Fruchter and Sprague D liked this

Wallens comments: Doing a parallel, with the TV sector, channels provide value to their audience via their programs. Two main revenue models have emerged over time in this industry - advertisement and subscription. Same applies to the newspaper sector where there is a mix of both models in most cases but you see “pure” models emerging. In those industries, creating value to users brings an audience and the company selects the monetization vehicle via advertising and/or via subscription. None of these two models have emerged as superior to the other in the TV sector (though the most widespread is clearly advertising). So the question is not whether advertising is feasible in media, it is. - Alexander van Elsas

my response: "Is that really so? I agree that it is widespread, but the remote control and tivo are the best reasons why it really adds no value to the user experience. It is done, but people find ways around it because advertisement gets in the way of their experience (watching tv). Imo advertisement has only really proven itself to the user in terms of value in search. In most other cases advertisement is lucrative for the advertiser, the service provider, and very rarely for the user. Only if the advertisement itself contains value to the user it is viable. If it is used to sponsor something that has a cost, it is a value-lowering experience imo - Alexander van Elsas

Alex Howard shared an item on Google Reader

Ignorance is bliss, a new privacy nightmare is born

October 8 at 8:14 am - Link

Alexander van Elsas liked this

I don't plan on searching much within Facebook. - Alex Howard

I'd be careful with other stuff too if I were you ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

Ignorance is bliss, a new privacy nightmare is born

October 7 at 11:05 pm - Link

Mike Fruchter, Nicolas Caitan, Kirill Bolgarov and 3 other people liked this

@ashraf comments:"I dont see any problem in that. Privacy is overrated actually. It would not be a problem for FB to show your friends what you are looking for, unless you are searching for porno :D" - Alexander van Elsas

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my response:"@Ashraf Facebook knows about you, your interests (political, sexual, religion etc. etc), your relationships with others (including their interests), the things you buy, see, go to, search. Once you join Facebook, your soul is theirs. There are numerous examples in history of mankind where that kind of information has lead to terrible misuse. Why is that problem overrated? Privacy is too important to be handled by these companies." - Alexander van Elsas

well, i personally don't mind facebook keeping a track record of my actions, but i surely would mind them sharing it with my friends without asking me 3 times: "are-you-really-really-we-mean-really-sure-you-want-us-to-share-it" =) - Kirill Bolgarov

seriously, i believe that the more the information service provider knows about me, the better value they can provide me with - Kirill Bolgarov

@kirill. Wht if Facebook knows what religion or political views you have. What if your own government forces Facebook to provide them profile data on users. What if Facebook knows things about a relationship between you and a friend, between you and family member. I can think of tons of things I don't want anyone to know about me. Not because I'm hiding things that are illegal. But because they are MY business. I want to be in control of my own privacy. - Alexander van Elsas

@Kirill. Make this physical for a moment. Would you mind that some company installs web cams in your house, monitors your phone calls, e-mail, conversations you have in the house or at a bar with friends, so that they can provide you better service? I bet you would mind it there? So why is it different on-line? - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

A shakeout of unhealthy advertisement sponsored web 2.0 businesses

October 6 at 11:36 pm - Link

Bill Sanders, Atul Arora and Mike Fruchter liked this

Svetlana:"Alexander, actually in my post on online ads I was thinking more about media companies (websites of newspapers, news sites, blogs, etc.), not the ad-supported startups. The problem with ad-supported model is often that startups need to raise money to operate and with investment banks breaking chances of getting an investment will be lowering. Of course for startups it will be wiser to develop a solid business model based on real value people are ready to pay for instead of supporting themselves with ads. What I was talking about myself is that advertisers will still continue to pay money for the ads we display - and it will be the matter of efficiency where they spend their money." - Alexander van Elsas

my answer:"Hi Svetlane, I understand what you are saying. I’m touching the same subject from a slightly different perspective. I also believe that media companies will remain spending advertisement money on-line. But because they will be forced to do this more efficiently we will see that it will have great effect on advertisement based startups. They will get hit hard has both investors and media companies will be less likely to invest based upon an advertisement based business model only. And that is a good thing. - Alexander van Elsas

Paul Buchheit posted a message

“Who would you rather have as president, Tina Fey, or Sarah Palin?”

October 6 at 7:06 pm - Link

Dave Dash, Mike Reynolds, Steven Perez and 18 other people liked this

Tina Fey and Sarah Palin.. President and Vice President - Kyle Lacy

26 more comments

Oprah. - Sprague D

Palin has a better chance against Biden than she would against Fey. - Carlos Ayala

What Sprague said. - Cecily

Tina Fey. Hands down. - Cyndy

Though if we're going to have a comedian as president, I'd pick Dave Chappelle http://www.comedycentral.com/v... - Paul Buchheit

Is that a trick question? - AJ Batac

I'd pay to see a debate between Fey and Palin! - Paul Buchheit

I'd like to see Palin as a guest host on SNL. - Gary Burd

Fey, of course! - Corie "Viper" Jones

Paul from what I hear there's a pretty good chance you'll get your wish. http://bit.ly/2ZKayW - Dave Winer

+1 Paul - Kevin Johnson

FEY FOR PREZUDINT! - Aulia Masna via twhirl

I love the 'Black Bush' episode! - April Buchheit

Fey ftw - xero

Tina Fey. - Alex Scoble CISSP

Now, TF would be a real hot president. Plus we'd have the funniest presidential speeches, ev-var! Schwing! - David Lee

Tina Fey - Tim

Actually think it would be funny if the news story floating around tonight that Palin is taking to NBC to 'mock back' really happens. This could turn out to be a fun election instead of an ugly one - Charlie Anzman

Fey FTW! - Susan Beebe (Santa Claus)

I have a strong feeling that Fey gets her facts from something other than her Starbucks cup. - ::Kristen::

Tina Fey - April Buchheit

michelle obama. - Kyle Weller

Given your audience, Paul, I'm pretty sure that when given the choice of Palin or X, X will win 99% of the time. - Gabe

How about Palin vs Stalin then? I think Palin would be way better. - Paul Buchheit

I think Stalin would fall into that 1% where Palin wins. Of course, Stalin's dead, so maybe he would do a better job at the moment. - Gabe

I'd say pick Palin. She knows so little about anything it is not likely she'll be able to set the world on fire like Bush was able to do with his foreign policy. And I thought we were the laughing stock when Holland picked our current clumsy, nerdy looking prime minister ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

"McCain is Feylin" so maybe Obama boomaye? - Mrinal Desai

Tina Fey as VP. Then either Stephen Colbert or John Stewart as president. But I'll stick with Obama and Biden. :) - Mike Reynolds

David Risley posted a message on Twitter

“Bloggers: How do YOU handle complainers on your blog? http://tinyurl.com/3usmhl”

October 6 at 9:01 am - Link

Glenn Batuyong, Alexander van Elsas, Daniel J. Pritchett and Steven Hodson liked this

Thank them for their time and then gently point out that there's no return on gold-plating every single blog post. - Daniel J. Pritchett

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Good point. :-) - David Risley

I don't allow comments of any kind. Problem solved. - Akiva Moskovitz

@Akiva: - Daniel J. Pritchett

Haven't had any nasty ones yet. I did have one: Scott Hanselman did ask me to locally host an image I sourced from his site ( it was loading from his server instead of mine). I promptly fixed it. - Roberto Bonini

1UP Daniel - Akiva Moskovitz

Embrace the opportunity for conversation and thank them for adding to it. If you have lots of comments on every post - give your commenters a chance to come to your aid before you reply. - Mike Sansone

My initial reaction is sarcasm, then I realize that's not the right thing to do so I either ignore them, or address their complaints in a tactful manner. I really want to be sarcastic though. - Bwana

I always publish them unless they get really offensive. In most cases users can simply make up their own minds about such comments. - Alexander van Elsas

Steven Hodson posted an entry on WinExtra

Are We Short-changing Ourselves With This Attention Economy Idea?

October 6 at 12:29 pm - Link

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Brian, Duncan Riley and 4 other people liked this

"Chances are that I probably have already lost more than half the people who started reading this post because it is too long winded or is in need of an editor to make it short and snappy. I’ve lost count of the number of comments I’ve had on past posts that say almost those exact words. Everyone wants the TechCrunch and Digg style synopsis posts because they are too busy to take time to worry about in depth or wordy posts. If we can’t cram everything we want to say within a single paragraph the majority of readers won’t bother than doing anything more skim the first couple of paragraphs, form their opinion and then be on their way to the next snappy post." - Alexander van Elsas

"If this is indeed the case then I think we are really losing something very valuable - the ability be a truly knowledgeable society. When this happens I believe there is indeed a dumbing down of our society. If we are really happy being fed smaller chunks of information we are removing the ability to make real value judgements. It also becomes much easier to manipulate us, to polarize us, to trivialize even the important news in our day to day lives.Do we really need for our attention to be manipulated this way?Do we really not have enough time to let our attention be grabbed by something more than single paragraphs? - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

The best business models focus on user value

October 6 at 7:18 am - Link

David Krug, Atul Arora, Hutch Carpenter and Franklin Pettit liked this

Nice comment from Fred Wilson: "first use is critical. getting that right makes everything else possible" - Alexander van Elsas

My reply:"Fred, I fully agree (but you know that already ;-) ). I also think that advertisement models often lure us away from answering First Use questions.These models are mostly growth or network oriented, not user-value oriented. Growth is something that will occur naturally because you create user value. It shouldn’t be the other way around. Freemium is the best way to do that. It builds a fanatic customer base that will help you to improve your service and it allows revenue stream that directly monetize user value. The simplest and best business model there is. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted a link

Well, that explains it all, sort of...

October 6 at 5:50 am - Link

I wrote about how the attention economy creates the sound bytes economy. Here 's the best example I could find. Not sure what she actually tried to tell us... ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Rob Diana shared an item on Google Reader

The Sound Byte Economy

October 6 at 3:38 am - Link

Roger Chen liked this

Very good point about soundbites/headlines. I think the problem may be that people stop at the headline because they feel they do not have enough time to read the whole article. Of course, you could learn more by reading the whole thing. - Rob Diana

To me it feels like a deadlock situation. Media is trained to talk in sound bytes to draw attention, we seem to take less time to get into the substance (that's one of the side effects of the attention economy). Just look at the presidential election going on now. No substance, all one-liners. And that is to acquire the most powerful job in the world. Scary. It can only change if we change our consuming behavior. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

The Soundbyte Economy

October 5 at 11:29 pm - Link

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Aviv, Nicolas Caitan and 4 other people liked this

@Tom Beardshaw responded: "Hey Alexander - good point. I think your description of the attention economy is spot on, but perhaps we should also think about the contexts and purposes of communication. I don’t think that substance will die… in fact it may become more important than ever, depending on how people’s values shift (and it seems that within the US election, the electorate is shifting towards placing more value on substance - let’s see how they vote, anyway)." - Alexander van Elsas

I answered: @Tom I hope you are right. I’m not so optimistic. Media is trained to think in terms of sound bytes. It’s a process that is hard to fix, unless we fix it ourselves. If all we do is go for the one-liners then nothing will change. If we are willing to explore, to get our hands on substance, which means investing time, then things will change eventually. - Alexander van Elsas

Eric Rice posted a message

“In the future, there will be no anonymity-- online or anywhere-- to prevent false or speculative info from affecting things like stock (Apple's stock hit by rumors of Steve Jobs having a heart attack). That's my diabolical prediction. /me runs to the manuscript and pens in some futurrrrrre.”

October 3 at 9:44 am - Link

Steve Lynch, Steve Isaacs, Alexander van Elsas and 5 other people liked this

And I think there's a lot more understanding of components of the financial crisis in America where money can move based on certain types of SPEECH. I mean, the first bailout, regardless of how rushed, was on deadline because of how other markets would perceive it. We have to think things are okay even if they aren't? Come ON. The extended phrase for 'con man' is Confidence Man. Sayin'. - Eric Rice

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Wow, check this comment from Silicon Valley Insider... you have to wonder how widespread this could be: " This is one of the reasons that the whole iReport thing makes no sense for a mainstream news site. Leave the amateurs and hoaxers to the blogosphere where they thrive. It's just a way for CNN to be lazy by having the unwashed masses do more and more of their 'reporting'. " - Eric Rice

LOL!! Another GREAT crack: "Isn't the big picture here really more about how the market is just one big game to be hacked? When you base the lifeforce of the economy on a combination of software and superstition, you reap what you sow. " - Eric Rice

Heh, I also love how disclaimers don't mean shit. - Eric Rice

In the future we will simply ignore that bullshit instead of hype it ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

David Brin wrote on this subject almost a decade ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... - Eric P

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

The linking economy fails because social currency became financial currency

October 3 at 12:21 am - Link

Aviv, Mike Fruchter, Hutch Carpenter and 6 other people liked this

@Freecloud responds: "right - and that is what will make "whuffie" unusable as well - the game theory is obvious! Hmmm...I feel a blog post coming on :D" -> can't wait to see what e as to say about Whuffie ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Nice snippet from a comment by Nicolas "“This conclusion is very much in line with findings of Introna & Nissenbaum (34), who argue that search engines raise not merely technical issues but also political ones. Their study of search engines suggest that search engines systematically exclude (in some cases by design and in some cases accidentally) certain sites, and certain types of sites, in favor of others, systematically giving prominence to some at the expense of others. They argue that such biases, which would lead to a narrowing of the Web’s functioning in society, run counter to the basic architecture of the Web as well as the values and ideals that have fueled widespread support for its growth and development. - Alexander van Elsas

The article by Introna & Nissenbaum is available at http://tinyurl.com/3zz3a5 . - Nicolas Caitan

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

Tim O’Reilly nails the definition for web 2.0. Can we move on please!

October 2 at 12:43 am - Link

Mike Fruchter, Franklin Pettit, Sarah Perez and 3 other people liked this

Can't believe I managed to write Hutch's name wrong yet again, sorry Hutch (old habits are hard to change) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Nicolas Caitan wrote a nice comment on the blog in which he says that user-centric thinking and privacy are important, I agree in full of course ;-) http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/... - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander thanks for your kind words :) - Nicolas Caitan

Another quote from Tim which is great "That goes back to a major theme of web 2.0 that people haven't yet tweaked to. It's really about data and who owns and controls, or gives the best access to, a class of data." -> my question is always, why is no one concerned enough to give the user control over his own data. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

The idiocy of Social Media conversations

October 1 at 12:50 am - Link

Sachendra, Mike Fruchter, Esteban Panzeri Glas and 23 other people liked this

I agree it's important to think about the importance of services like friendfeed and twitter. My experience is that real in dept answers which combine to a discussion are sooner found on blogs than on friendfeed. On twitter discussion are very hard to follow altogether. You have chosen to comment on Robert's blog by writing your own blogpost and not by writing a comment on friendfeed or his blog. I do think you're not giving especially friendfeed enough credit when you say it's just like a bar and only good for some entertainment. (We could have a discussion about the value of a bar some other time :-) If you keep the person who comments in mind, you often have the most skilled people commenting on post of the subject of their expertise. On friendfeed those subjects are rather going to be social network, internet marketing and new media. Ofcourse subjects like politics and science are also discussed and there your point about Stephen Hawking is true I think. - Tobias Verhoog

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Tobias, I do believe there are experts around here. But I also find the level of "discussions" are lowered by the boldness that people use to "discuss". We talk more than we listen so to say. In real life we use more senses to interact. Sight, hearing, feelings, etc. Here a discussion ultimately is limited by the number of words Friendfeed allows you to input into a discussion ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Nice followup by @freecloud: http://broadstuff.com/archives... - Alexander van Elsas

Isn't the effect of using aggregators more (and thus more useless) information? More voices... more opinions... all need to be analysed if you want to make some sense of it. By its nature I agree that the chances of finding good economic experts on FF are rare, but have you looked for them? Everybody connects to other people within his field of interest and frankly... detailed economy isn't one of mine. - Tom Vanlerberghe

@Tom My point wasn't really that there are no experts here, I think there are quite a few (very similar types). But the way Friedfeed works and the culture I see here is that it is quite hard to have a "discussion". Too many opinions, more statements than people asking questions. Just look at what I'm doing now, I'm trying to make a point here too ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Tom btw I fully agree that aggregation is often quite useless. it's too much sharing without intent. Makes the stuff that gets shared often less valuable to the receiver. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, I value your writing, but I didn't laugh at Robert's post. When he says he's warming to Andrew Keen's argument that's significant. There has been a trend to devalue offline expertise as elitist and luddite (Matthew Ingram, Jeff Jarvis, etc.) -- Robert's reappraisal helps restore some balance. - Sprague D

Last night I was arguing religion and politics with a believer who didn't know who Ralph Reed is. We have become a nation of Sarah Palins and we wonder why she is so popular. Sigh. And this is on FriendFeed where I assume we are smarter than average. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Scoble- I recently had a revelation that my perception of you last year was incorrect; that you were a neurotic with an undeserved audience. I had begun to see recently, that you are indeed thoughtful and accomplished. However, quotes like "we have become a nation of Sarah Palins..." is hypocritical when the other side is in the midst of their most dramatic lying, phony charade ever. I can't believe how many otherwise smart people are willing to ignore so much. Folks want to bash the Right? Go for i - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

..Go for it, they deserve it!! But at least call the Left on the massive bias, lying, bullshit. There is NO credibility left on the left either. None. http://tinyurl.com/538x72 - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

Ed: you would do the right a lot more good if you didn't try to defend Palin. I used to be a Republican and I would like to be one again (I am actually a fiscal conservative) but as long as people on the right stick up for religious idiots like Palin I will hold my nose and hang out with tax-and-spend liberals. Not to mention that the deficit went up with a Republican-controlled President and Congress. Oh, I want to believe in real conservatism! Oh, and regarding lying, McCain does a lot more of that then Obama. You should look into it. - Robert Scoble

@Sprague I feel we (elite online media experts) are often a bit overconfident of our own expertise (yes I include myself here). That's why I like reading books and use other resources to be able to tap into really smart people. Out here, we mostly sound very smart ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Ed Shaz you just proved why it is hard to have a focused conversation over at Friendfeed. You are hijacking it to move towards political opinions ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert I'm not defending the right. They've whored our nation down the drain. But the dialog from the Left, and in the mainstream media makes 'disingenuous' a compliment. There's so much complete fabrication, that the population has NO chance at an honest discussion, which leads to us fighting each other for a thousand powerful fat cats in DC. It's uncivil war. The citizens lose while the Dick Cheney's and Chris Dodd's get away with murder. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

Alexander: I have made it my life's work to meet and study smart people. The folks who hang out here are generally very smart. But it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. You should travel America sometime and stop in a random bar to get a sense of how good it is here. - Robert Scoble

Great post, Alexander. As someone who drops in and out of the conversation (and observes US political discussion from my Canadian arms-length viewpoint), I can accept this form of socializing as akin to a cocktail party where in-depth conversation rarely (but occasionally) happens. - David Muir

In other words, Abraham Lincoln would never vote for Barack Obama. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

Ed: Well, you might have convinced me had you not started out by defending Palin. That just tainted everything you have said since then. Start over by admitting she is an idiot and then we can talk. - Robert Scoble

@Robert, I was at an American bar just a few days ago. Had conversations with @NVineberg, @ck, @stoweboyd, @JoshMcHugh and other really smart folks from many different companies. I used the bar metaphor because I felt it fit. FF gives great and fun conversations, but if you want to know smart things it's best to sit down with a real expert than have a public "I know it best" conversation over here on FF". Can't comment on American bars in general though, not enough expertise there ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert, just to be sure, I do not doubt there are smart people on FF, I just think (just like you do) that the medium doesn't provide a lot of in-depth expert conversations. - Alexander van Elsas

In my mind FF is like the main room of the cocktail party and in depth conversations can spin off from there -- onto blogs or other platforms for people to voice and then hear other people's opinions. By the way, being an early tech adopter qualifies people to have in-depth opinions about the economy as much as being a successful actor does. But as Robert pointed out yesterday, people can bring widely diverse experiences to the conversation (so don't limit all FFers to the "early tech adopter" slot). - David Muir

@Alexander On the contrary, implicit in this thread is the evidence that thought exchanges of value occur in social media arenas. The deviation from your singular intent, is common in web 2.0. How many bloggers initiate a discussion which the voices take off with, which results in excellent dialog? Original flight plan? No. Valuable, legitimate, edifying? YES. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

David: I didn't realize that being an early tech adopter means you don't know anything about anything else. I know congressmen, librarians, architects, teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc that are early tech adopters - Robert Scoble

Robert: I actually tried to echo your point from yesterday (not only that other kinds of experts can be early tech adopters, but that those who are primarily considered early tech adopters can have widely diverse experiences). Sorry if that didn't come across in my comment. :-) - David Muir

@ed In real life conversations are hardly "singular intent" either. But trolling is a term that was invented in "web 2.0". Hijacking here is easier and different from real life conversations. I tend to disagree with your conclusion that the dialogue then becomes "excellent". Imo it merely takes a different direction - Alexander van Elsas

Wikipedia's definition of a troll "An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." - Alexander van Elsas

Wait, Scoble knows all the cool people, and the rest of us aren't smart or capable enough to see them or realize they exist? Thanks for the constant reminders, Robert! *cough* Alexander, you could easily have just left "conversations" off your post title. - abacab

Hm. Do you feel that face to face, off-line conversations are not "hijacked" or don't deviate from the initial kernels of thought and discussion? I've seen that plenty too. And I've moderated conversations both on, and off line, where I had to nudge folks back to focus *because* resolution of a question was critical. If you want to ensure a particular outcome, Alexander, you'd have to install parameters. Perhaps a private room, with a hand chosen few. Or install mirrors. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct

i find huge value in friendfeed, so the statement you made that its only for entertainment is out to lunch and seems more like linkbaiting to me - imho of course - mike "glemak" dunn

> abacab actually this is a major problem with social networks. I call it the "friend divide." If you joined FriendFeed and don't know the difference between Alexander and, say, Tim O'Reilly, wouldn't you be at a disadvantage to those who DO know the difference? I think so. And to say there's no difference is just plain wrong. Attacking people who know the difference and are willing to point it out is also wrong. - Robert Scoble

@Ed when you are sitting with a few people the overall conversation moves into different directions too, btu the process is different. We use many stimuli and sort of find it okay for this to happen. Here you just use CAPS LOCK (its a metaphor) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert are you referring to the fact that Tim is American and I'm Dutch ;-) You are right of course, the playing field is leveled here, anyone can be a pop star or an expert and it is nearly impossible to validate anything being said. I think Tim is WAY smarter and experienced than I am BTW. - Alexander van Elsas

@David you are right, it's a "simple" view. Not all FF users are early adopters, but very few of them are mainstream (how could they be here) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Robert, you do post frequently (often rather casually and indirectly) dismissing others for not seeing what you see. You also spend a fair number of posts telling us all about who and what you know. Maybe you just don't see you're doing these things. Ironic, no? I think there can be a divide, but I think it's something most people already understand exists. This space is essentially no different than real life in that regard, despite having arguably better access to the "elite". - abacab

@abacab not to defend Robert, he can do that himself. I assumed he meant to say it is hard to see who is an expert and who is not. I think that is true. On FF or anywhere else on-line it is hard to decide to trust the 'expertise' of someone making bold statements. I for one would warn you not to assume everything I write is correct. It is, and remains to be, my personal view of the world ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

The thing that astonishes me about the veneration of FriendFeed is that it's fundamentally just a link-injected BBS where instead of users posting to the forum they post elsewhere and talk about it here. It's faster than the old way, for certain, but it does seem like it makes discussion more disposable and less considered than it otherwise might be - and information becomes fragmented when the original posts don't point back to the associated discussions. - kris. nuttycombe

+1 Kris. Everything old is new again! - Sprague D

Alexander, rest assured that I do not assume anything anyone writes is ever automatically correct. That includes my own writing. I tend to put people on a level middle ground; I don't hold those with more social 'gravity' in higher regard. I tend to (as objectively as possible) examine the content itself long before I (usually subjectively) consider the person behind it. Anyway, this is a -social- space, not a thinktank or a research group which would and should demand different thinking and attitudes. - abacab

+1 abacab. Agree in full ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Erhan Erdogan posted a link

Glubble for Families is live now « Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

September 27 at 11:13 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

roel liked this

"For now I’ll leave you with a special tribute the Glubble team has made for Ian Hayward. Ian has been the driving force behind Glubble and it was him that once started the journey that got us here today. Glubble for Families is now used in 125 countries around the world!" Congrats Alexander! - Erhan Erdogan via Bookmarklet

Erhan, thank you! It's all pretty amazing ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

I didn't know that you were in the team when I first shared about Glubble! Look: http://friendfeed.com/e/3cbe03... Funny! ; ) - Erhan Erdogan

Erhan, yes I am. I've been involved in the building of our new Glubble for Families service from the start ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Steven Hodson posted an entry on WinExtra

Disqus Has A Public API - Now What?

September 26 at 7:43 am - Link

Kenichi Matsumoto, Chris Baskind, Franklin Pettit and 5 other people liked this

Good point, Steven. - Phil Glockner

5 more comments

You wrote, "Why should any of those options really be of any interest to a blog owner?" It's possible the blog owner isn't the target here, but instead those who are building services that would integrate with Disqus are the target. Also, my hypothesis of a firewalled Yammer-equivalent Disqus-powered tool could work for Intranet collaboration, making this a good move for the enterprise (just speculation). I know you and Alexander are on a "social media low" right now, so the comment "Great idea for people that live within the Silicon Valley bubble." is not a big surprise, but the alternative to being open is closed, and this is a good step for one of the services I know you like a lot. So, let's see what can happen! - Louis Gray

To echo Louis's statements above, here is a great new post from @johnt about splicing smaller social tools like blogs and wikis into larger workflows: http://friendfeed.com/e/c383e1... Let's see more exploration of third-party commenting beyond just "what can it do for my blog"! - Daniel J. Pritchett

@Louis - since when does questioning what the value of something brings to the table have anything to do with a "social media low" - give me a break - I could have said the same thing to you after your punishing review if chi.mp Are we suppose to all be so enamored with the baubles being tossed out by a new generation of web entrepreneurs that we're not suppose to ask questions. - Steven Hodson

I never said what they did was bad or silly - I was just asking some very simple questions based on my use of Disqus and from how I have seen the API being used at this point i.e. FriendFeed. - Steven Hodson

@Louis, it was me that made that comment, not Steven. Its an opinion that can hardly be a surprise if you ave been following the things I write or talk about in public ;-) I simply observe that there is an extremely positive bias within the Silicon Valley community towards these type of developments I do not see anywhere else. Anything that has the scent of "social media" or "api" is instantly interesting, and there seems to be little discussion about the actual (user) value of such developments. - Alexander van Elsas

@Louis I'm not so sure if I'm on a social media low, but I've definitely found that I have spent more time broadening my interests and conversations again. I find the current "social media" conversation becoming less exciting. Were moving around in circles and not getting anywhere new it seems. - Alexander van Elsas

@Alexander- A new API without good demos or toolkit doesn't help end users today but it's a very refreshing decision all the same given DISQUS's growth trend over the last 12 months. This great new service choosing interoperability over the AOL/Facebook walled garden model some of us feared is a laudable move and deserves to be talked about. - Daniel J. Pritchett

mashable posted an entry on Mashable!

Glubble: Safe Social Network for the Family

September 20 at 11:43 am - Link

Rob Diana, Erhan Erdogan and tehKenny liked this

I'm a little disappointed. I had thought that this would be a way to let your kids network safely. I have an 11 year old that would LOVE to do stuff with other kids online but he can't sign up for anything until he's 13 (and I understand and agree with the reasons). He feels left out of things when he sees me and Tad having such a good time with our friends online, not to mention he doesn't have a lot in common with his meatspace friends because of his niche interests. It would be awesome to have a safe way for him to meet other geeky kids online. Too bad that's not with this is for. - Lindsay Donaghe

7 more comments

Lindsay, Glubble for Families offers many ways for parents to support their child to discover the web and social networking. One feature for the child is that we provide him a safe and fun Kids Page where he can chat with family members. By letting him do that he can learn about social networking without the danger of getting into contact with strangers. In a later stage we might open this up a little (for example to other families or friends), but a parent would still be in charge and need to approve that. - Alexander van Elsas

Thanks, Alexander. My son already has our family members (those who actually get on line occasionally) on IM. What I'm looking for for him is some way to interact with other kids, of course with our approval. It could start by approving other families we know (like his friends at school), but again, he's into stuff most local kids his age aren't, but I know there are other kids out there who are. Would be nice if he could connect with like minds on the net just like we older folks do. - Lindsay Donaghe

It sucks it's so easy to pretend to be a kid (or an adult, for that matter). Really makes projects like what you want difficult. :( - abacab

Yeah, I know abacab. But parent approval for the interaction might be doable... I guess it would be more complicated with "strangers" though. Poor kid.. I just know there are other kids out there that he'd have a blast with... but he'll just have to wait. - Lindsay Donaghe

Lindsay and abacab. It would probably work like in real life. You might let your child play with a friend he knows from school. But before you do that you want to get to know that friend's parents too. It's the best you can do to let your child have some freedom and at the same time know he is safe. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander: It should work like that, but the anonymity online, among other factors, makes it a lot more iffy, imo. I'm much less concerned with my kids interacting with kids I've actually physically met (for better or worse). - abacab

Abacab, agreed. That is why we start with families. As a parent you can later extend this a little, but our advise would be to do that with people you know and trust. - Alexander van Elsas

Certainly, and I think you've got a great first step going already. :) - abacab

Lol - Luke Martin

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

Free is not dead. It’s the accompanying advertisment model that needs to be killed

September 19 at 1:02 am - Link

Franklin Pettit, Tim Hoeck, ☂Marcos Marado and 5 other people liked this

I think we would see better services if we could skip the free/ad-based philosophy. Here's the problem though. We (users) can't afford to pay for every single product/service we use. I pick a select few that I truly feel are worth the money, the rest I rely on free ad-based services. That being said, if a company wants to build a large user base (i.e. make a name for themselves), their only option is to start off free. Unfortunately, they still need money to operate. And what about companies like Tivo, where I pay a monthly fee and STILL get ads? What kind of model is that? Great post as always, Alexander.. and congrats on the new job! - Tim Hoeck

@Tim I agree that not every user can afford to pay for services. Providing a FREE service is always a good idea, but people need to get more creative than trying to compensate with ads. It's has so many disadvantages, the most important being that it doesn't provide user value ;-) So my rant isn't against FREE at all, but against the accompanying advertisement harassment - Alexander van Elsas

Steven Hodson posted an entry on WinExtra

Wisdom Of Crowds Is A Load Of Crap

September 17 at 12:03 pm - Link

David HC Soul, Susan Beebe (Santa Claus), ivanandersson and 5 other people liked this

The "bitter title" series continues! Yay! - Phil Glockner

3 more comments

@J. Phil .. bitter ... na :) .. truthful .. maybe LOL - Steven Hodson

I think Steven makes some good points. It seems that we tend to take any new theory and make it a mantra of life immediately. It just doesn't work that way. crowds can do weird things too (that's called mass hysteria) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alex - I mentioned that in my comment on the site, with a link to crowd psychology on wikipedia. - Phil Glockner

Crowds are very good at figuring out some things that are very difficult for individuals to figure out. Like how many pebbles are in a jar. I'm not exactly sure what other kind of wisdom you would be looking for from them. - Alex Scoble CISSP

being able to figure out the number of pebbles in a jar isn't what I would think of as being a redeeming feature for crowd wisdom LOL - Steven Hodson

Alexander van Elsas posted a message on Twitter

“new blog post: Early adopters fail to answer the First Use question for Social Media: http://bit.ly/iIoO1”

September 15 at 11:33 pm - Link

Mia, Roger Kondrat, Casey and 5 other people liked this

Well done. - abacab

7 more comments

Thank you ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, you write “Social Media is just a tool, a fun playground, cool technology. But it doesn’t have all that much impact on the lives of ordinary people.” Although I agree with the general observation, I’d put this in a different context. Isn’t this the case with all advanced / elitist cultural or economic sectors? Can’t the same (low impact on the lives of ordinary people) be said about things like: astronomical theories, Joyce’s Ulysses, SAP or the LHC? All those things would not pass the First Use Question but that doesn’t pose a problem. - Benedikt Koehler

Benedikt, that’s a good question. The thing with social media (and often a lot of web 2.0 startups) is that the early adopter crowd is not asking the tough question of First Use. Yet at the same time they often tend to write about new technology as if it is the best thing ever. Simple example, Half of the Internet population probably knows about Google Search. Every new startup or technology that is innovating in the area of search is now convicted as being a “Google killer”. Sensational, but obviously unrealistic. With respect to web technology I think we can safely assume that a lot of “ordinary” users are now on the web. These people have found ways to integrate that experience into their lives. They are the target groups for services like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, or any other social media service. But just because these services aim at that market doesn’t mean they can be succesful there. That’s where the first use questions are important. Not everyone knows or cares about astronomical theories, bu - Alexander van Elsas

when it comes to services that have impact on normal things in life like communication, sharing, connecting, meeting with friends and family, everyone is an expert ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

A comment from Mark Rizzn Hopkins on my post in reaction to Benedikts comment: "I think you’re right, to a certain extent, benedikt. The difference is, though, that Joyce, LHC and the other things you mention aren’t intended eventually or currently for mainstream usage (and I shudder to think of the mere thought of my neighbor using the LHC unsupervised)." - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, as usual you got me thinking. So, you have inspired another blog post for later this week. I like the "first use" idea, but I think we can go further than that. - Rob Diana

Rob, thanks. Let me guess, second use? ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Well, "getting in the door" is difficult. Being invited back is the key. - Rob Diana

Good one. I'll be waiting to read about that over at your place :-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

Times have changed, I’ve joined Glubble

September 14 at 11:31 pm - Link

Aviv, Mark Trapp, Rob Diana and 9 other people liked this

Congratulations !!! - Atul Arora

9 more comments

@Atul, thank you! ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Congratulations, Glubble is a great company. - Kerem Ozkan

Congrats! Sounds like a great move. And I must say, I'm curious about what you guys are developing. :-) - roel

@Kerem thank you - Alexander van Elsas

Roel, I have preview invites, so if you want to take a look, then let me know. That goes for anyone interested ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

congrats! Am really excited to see the launch of Glubble - Karthikeyan P

Congrats Alexander on your new ventures! - Mike Fruchter

That's great Alexander - look forward to seeing Glubble. And let's catch up when you're out in SF. - Hutch Carpenter

Congrats! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Mike, Hutch, Dobromir, thanks guys, appreciate it. - Alexander van Elsas

Hutch, I'll be in SF around the 22nd of September. We can catch up from there, and obviously you're invited to our launch party (details follow) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted a message on Twitter

“En voor alle nieuwsgierigen in Nederland (@pixities bv ;-), ik werk nu voor Glubble: http://bit.ly/5gOhU”

September 14 at 11:44 pm - Link

Van harte met de nieuwe baan! Ben benieuwd naar jullie nieuwe product(en)! - roel

roel dank je. En zoals aangegeven, ik heb preview codes om de nieuwe service te gaan bekijken, dus als je wilt laat het dan even weten ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Elizabeth stumbled upon a site on StumbleUpon

My Social Media saturation could be caused by a poor business model & Alexander van Elsas&8217;s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social...

September 12 at 10:56 am - Link

Social Media saturation caused by a bad business model? - Elizabeth

To explain in a few words. Most web 2.0 services provide me free but ad based services. As a result the focus of a service provider is on monetizing a large network, instead of providing me real user value. I noticed that I spent less time on such services as life gets busier. I fall back on services that do focus on user value. ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas posted an entry on Alexander van Elsas's Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

My Social Media saturation could be caused by a poor business model

September 12 at 1:30 am - Link

Sprague D, Neill Adamson, Werner Trotter and 2 other people liked this

sounds a bit'been there, done that' to me; does it mean you don't consider f.i. twitter as a value chain? - pixites