Dave Winer

I've been wondering with Netbook to buy for a few months now, this post sold me - 1000HA it is. - Enrique Gutierrez via twhirl

Hope it offers some perspective Enrique, but remember that everyone's needs are different. If the 1000HA will meet yours, you'll be thrilled with it for that price. Enjoy! - Kevin C. Tofel

1000HA doesn't have 802.11N and Bluetooth. If you're ok with that, go for it. - Rodfather

CES starts in like 3 days. Don't make any rash decisions yet. - Anika Malone

I got my wife the MSI Wind for Christmas and she loves it. - Alan Le

...and MacWorld Expo keynote is tomorrow morning. Hold on just a little while longer! - Glenn Batuyong

Hard to go wrong. You're really splitting hairs when it comes to netbooks imho. - Bwana

Oh geez... Did you still have an active session open? - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

WHAT?!?!?! Jeez....did you Super Gen Pass the password? - Live4Soccer

I've posted a note on my Twitter feed, hopefully it'll make it to the Twitter folk. - Dave Winer

Ouch Leo. Hope Twitter gets that account back to you real-soon-now. - Robert Miller

wow, thats not a good thing... - Bryce Campbell via twhirl

Mine changed while I had an active session going! Change password - orionstarr

Leo got hacked! - orionstarr

I did not fall for the recent Phishing scheme so one of three things has happened, my password was hacked through a flaw in Twitter, one of the many services (NOT twply) that I gave my credentials to has hijacked it, or someone guessed the password. - Leo Laporte

Yep, spam and mlm are going to be a massive problem for Twitter mainly because spammers have a business model and twitter does not, here's an article I wrote on this topic just before Christmas http://experiencecurve.com/arc... - karl

I figured there would be some good conversation on TWiT regarding the hacks, now even more so. - Matt Mutz

This is not about pfishing.. this is something else - Ian D. Nock

i'll assume you put a strong password on somehow, yes? So that would mean something gave away your password or there was a bored hacker somewhere that zapped you...sorry to hear that.... - Live4Soccer

That's Harsh. It had to have been Kevin Rose. He knew you were on to him - Marcus Beagley

STEVE JOBS ADMITS HEALTH PROBLEM http://tinyurl.com/stevejobshe... - James Carroll

@Leo - Maybe one of those third party services isn't securely storing your credentials and it was stolen from them. I'm saying that maybe the third party isn't malicious, just careless. - Mitch

uh oh - Veronica

Leo, the Twitter official blog says they reset the passwords on your behalf - Mark

Was Leo using Power Twitter at the time? New App new problem, coincidence? - SkiCat56

Get on the Red Phone and get @ev on the line. I've always knew giving out login credentials to 3rd party apps would lead to this. I like ping.fm and FF's use of an API key a lot better. - Dave Senior

Twitter needs to say more about what it was.. but my feeling this is something in the infrastructure or through people ... after all, Obama has not used his account for sometime. - Ian D. Nock

And you can bet that no-one messes around with all the apps using that account - Ian D. Nock

Well let's hope they don't make any horrible statements on your behalf about your sexual orientation or organs. :-) - Dave Winer

Twitter should use also something like apikey like ff, password for controlling your account and apikey for getting your content... or something like that :) - tanel

I heard from a reliable twitter account that Bill O'Reily is hot for manflesh.... - Mitch

No self-respecting gay man wants Bill O'Reilly. Not. A. One. - Derrick

Twitter may have reset my password but they haven't told me yet. Maybe they need my email? - Leo Laporte

Not even his "staunch morals"? - Mitch

I bet they wished they had followed Dave's advice about the authentication key thingy xx - Mark

I'm not a celebrity so probably no need to worry, but I changed my password nonetheless. - Herb

That's why I don't use 3rd party web services, don't trust any. Also Log-in on twitter.com using https. - Jay Barcelo

I think Leo put his fingers on the possible hacker routes. Pretty ugly. - Chris Baskind

Is Power Twitter one of the culprits??? I might have to uninstall it. - Roberto Bonini

New official blog post says "These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can't remember or get stuck" - Mark

Good grief! This is getting ridiculous. - Bill Sodeman

Hey now.. that's not cool. What did Leo ever do to you? Albrecht voices/suspects a hack on Diggnation podcast and now this? - Jamie Wareham

Geez Leo what a pain. I am sorry to hear.... - Rob Cairns

Is nothing sacred anymore? Seriously, Leo's Twitter! - Mike Syrek

Good luck Leo! - Mitchell Tsai

Seems you weren't the only one. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/0... - Greg

There's a security hole in some "support pages" used by Twitter admins. Inside job I say. Disgruntled former Twitterite. - Scott Duffy

What's the procedure to get your account back? - David

is there second email facility for twitter, like gmail does? - marx

Need list is food, clothes, house/car payments, sometimes gasoline. - Jeremiah Owyang

i used to not bother with that question. got me in alot of financial issues, now i do it all the time :) and turns out i dont need half the stuff i have :) - Jay Martinez

Coincidently, the 'want' list could be the same items. - Jeremiah Owyang

Why is that question so important? - Dave Winer

That question would have us living in the fertile crescent thinking the world was flat. It's want that drives society, not need. Be it want for knowledge "I want to know what is over that hill" or want for spiritual understanding "I want to know why I'm here" or want of toys "I want a better way mulch my lawn clippings" or want of the flesh "I want a hot three way with the chick at the video store" - Matthew DeVries

Jeremiah, this is the question that could truly improve the status of our world. - Cody Heitschmidt

Matthew, I think you are right on as well, your comment applies to spiritual, intellectual things and we have to continue to push our own personal envelopes on that side and never stop wanting!!! I believe it is the physical material item side of things that Jeremiah is speaking of. Does that make sense in anyone else's head besides mine? Very few of us NEED half the worthless crap we buy! - Cody Heitschmidt

I always forget to ask myself that... - Dennis Bjørn Petersen via twhirl

That is pretty much what marketing has done to us - it convinces us things we WANT we actually NEED. What we need is food, shelter and companionship - what we want is everything else. - HollowMarkeD

Always. - Shey

Ask myself those questions all the time. Conspicuous consumption isn't for all of us. - Sally Church

LOL! I ask my self that everytime! and I tell that to all my friends too. - Colide81 (James)

Is want a bad thing now? I prefer "can I afford this" :) - Soulhuntre via twhirl

After you've decided that you NEED it, I usually see how much I have to work for it... So I'll divide it by my hourly rate, and look at it and say, "Hmm, this costs me n-hours of work... " and its a second-phase evaluation - Colin Charles via twhirl

also helps to sleep on big purchases. that trick has saved me some money - sigurdur thor johannesson

Yeah, but it makes life kind of boring. - Rutger Blom

Get Rich Slowly blog gave a good tip on even wants: Ask yourself whether you'd rather have what's tempting you or that trip you planned (or whatever "want" goal you're saving up for). Helps you prioritize. - Spidra Webster

The real need list is very short. Think about how little some people have been surviving on. What we have usually is some high-priority wants masquerading as needs, but that's not a problem. It's just an indication of standard of living. - Morton Fox

As someone with multiple biology degrees, I can state with certainty the only things you need, are a carbon source and energy source. --Dr. Eisenberg Microbiology 1998 - Matthew DeVries

usually it goes WANT - sofarsoshawn

face ===> palm at Dave Winer's comment - Laura Norvig

If you go through life buying only the things you needed, it would be so boring. - Alan Le

No impulse on anything over $20 here. As a rule, I wait a week & then if I'm still moved to have it, I buy it on ebay. - Mrsth

I didn't used to, but these days, definitely. - Helen Somethingorothersky

If you want something just buy it. Consumption society is what keeps this world spinning. You should however at any time be prepared to live without all these "must-have" things you bought. - Rutger Blom

Before purchasing anything (particularly, expensive items), I give myself a 1-month window— for both doing research (reading reviews, manuals, etc) and deciding if I really want/need that particular product. If after a month I still want it, and depending on my budget at the time, I'll then buy it— if not, than I don't and move on. - Nick Humphries

It was Twitter's simplicity, a large infusion of cash to make it stable, and then the hyper multi-media play (CNN, etc.) that increased activity on the service many called 'dead' last year at this time. There are lessons to be learned here. Once a product reaches a very high level of users, there will always be security concerns along the way - Charlie Anzman

OAuth is over-complicated. You could do the same thing by validating specific domains to use your existing credentials. Twitter already does this when throttling apps to 100 requests per hour per IP address. Only realized this today when I got throttled. - Dave Winer

Most overnight successes take an Alaskan winter. - Akiva Moskovitz

Great post, Paul. One of the running themes of a lot of the posts yesterday seemed to come from "well, it's been a year: FriendFeed should be in a much different place," but great things take time to do. - Mark Trapp

Scott Berkun wrote a really fine book entitled "the myths of innovaiton" (http://www.amazon.com/Myths-In...). He points out that perhaps the greatest myth of innovation is that the innovation arrives in it's entirety in a single moment in time. Essentially that the innovation was a single flash of insight and execution. The reality is it comes piecemeal over time. - Brian Roy

Nice Paul, there are a whole boatload of startup / project myths I wish we could bust. The "overnight success" is one of the worst. - mikepk

Brain, exactly, and the myth there is the "one idea" that precipitates success drives me crazy too. I wrote a post (and reposted it a few months ago) about this one. http://mikepk.com/2008/07/i-wr... - mikepk

excellent Paul and while I have expressed my thoughts before I just may take you up on the "post your ideas" - Steven Hodson

Amen!! Peeps tend to see "web celebs," for example, once they're up there ... but no one sees the *years* of hard work prior! I like to say I'm an overnight success 10 years in the making!! :) - Mari Smith

Another interesting effect is that the VC cycle is predicated on hyper growth and 2 to 5 year return on investment. That helps push some ideas to failure even though, if given a more natural growth curve, they might have succeeded. - mikepk

+1 Mikepk - VC funding creates a hyper-focus on geometric growth instead of creating a sustainable company... Those two are NOT the same thing. - Brian Roy

Hyper-growth is dangerous because it forces a lot of short term moves, such as hiring the wrong people because you need them _now_. I suspect that better companies come out of busts than booms because they are able to grow at a reasonable pace. - Paul Buchheit

Epitome of why I love, trust, and believe in FriendFeed. Classy, Paul and thank you for sharing with the community. - Mona N.

Tell me about it. I got the arrows in my back to prove it. :-) - Dave Winer

Nice summary, Paul. As I mentioned in a comment on the post, it's clear you understand we care, and that we didn't intend to open the door for those clamoring for you to fail - but it was a natural result. - Louis Gray

"Once we launched, the response was surprisingly positive, except from the people who hated it for a variety of reasons. " - Clare Dibble

Although I have a love-hate affair with FriendFeed and my interest periodically peaks and wanes, Confucius says 'never trust a man who wears a beret the wrong way round'. - Andy C

@Paul - "Yes, technically you're doing my work for me, but it's mutually beneficial because we'll do our best to create a product that you like". Was this supposed to be an indirect response to Dave W asking you to pay him consulting for his ideas? - kartik vaithyanathan

Paul Buchheit +1 - Duncan Riley

So true. People think that from registering a domain to becoming a millonaire takes 1 idea and a couple of months. It took our company 10-years to do something "successful". - Martin Añazco

Been around this block a few times myself Paul. There is a pheneomenon out there around second ventures after the first was a winner. Let's have a talk about this over a beer after the outcome of FF is known. And also, I wouldn't necessarily count on the experience of selling a "product" inside a juggernaut like Google as being the same thing as making something work in the blogosphere or where ever it is FF is supposed to be planted. - Dave Winer

One more thing -- you're a very good writer -- but there's something else that isn't in your post. The odds against all startups are overwhelmingly against them. Ask Ev about Odeo someday. Your post is remarkably like the things he was writing about that product. And like the stuff I was saying after my company's IPO and was starting my second company. Unfortunately this was before blogs, so you'll have to take my word for it. I didn't really consider the possibility of failure. And of course we did fail. - Dave Winer

at least 24 hrs... ;o) - Rob Sellen

Great post Paul. Too many companies (see Webvan and slew of others) thought rapid growth was enough. But good businesses grow slowly, even on the Internet. - AJ Kohn

Nice post and great perspective. Nice position to be able to compare your own gmail experience to your FF experience. - bankwatch

Here's Joel Spolsky talking about the same thing: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/... - Piaw Na

The comments on your blog are awesome, e.g. "Gmail would be a lot better if it allowed registration of usernames < 6 characters wide." Proposed reply, "Oh, you can, but every single one has already been taken" - j1m

I commented in the post, but I saw a comment in FriendFeed that noted how another well-known service had a well-executed marketing introduction, followed by rapid growth, followed by severe technical failures. Not to imply that one growth model is always right and another one is always wrong (plus, that company solved its technical issues). - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Paul, keep up the good fight to properly manage FF for optimal growth, scalability and integration of features. Rushed products typically fail. However, a healthy burn rate is good too. Release timely updates in response to user demand. There are some important UIX features that should be released soon as users are clamoring for ease of use features and FF could risk losing more users if these basic UI features are not implemented within a reasonable amount of time. Good Luck! :) - Susan Beebe

I commented over at the post. Really nice entry, with great perspective. - Martha

Paul: I've read this post three times and it's a work of art. Thank you and thank you for creating a service that has addicted me for almost a year now. - Robert Scoble

Not to one up Scoble, but it's the service itself that is the work of art. - Jim Jannotti

i appreciate this blended perspective. today i am dealing with the often elusive "balancing" objective, i.e., what is an acceptable pace towards those "goals posts", while honoring the organic nature of the quest! - Gregg

+2 Paul - Varun Mahajan

Paul, FriendFeed just rocks... It's already great today... - Aad 't Hart

Bows to Rah - I applaud your will power. - jlt (janet)

Good on you! - Chris Charabaruk for Hire

Also my favorite TV show ever. - mikepk

Damn straight. - Mitch Wagner

I feel my Netflix queue getting larger. - Derrick

Dang, my queue is already too big. - Logical Extremes

Agreed. - Christopher Harley

bump!!! - Susan Beebe

I wont use anything you have to log into... if they use API thing.. fair enough.. to much crap going on. :o/ - Rob Sellen

NO Login reqd. It just *improves* twitter web page! woo hooo! - Susan Beebe

really? :o) - Rob Sellen

I just loaded the add-on, restarted Firefox browser and wala! Improvements galore! yeah! - Susan Beebe

good then? :o) - Rob Sellen

Yes! - Susan Beebe

good enough for me to try it then :o0 thanks..... BIZZYbee. :o) - Rob Sellen

hehheeh Buzzz Buzzz! - Susan Beebe

Installed it and my Firefox went out of control. It doesn't make sense to me, since I haven't restarted, yet. - MiɳiMagɘ is EnderMage

what you mean out of control? - Rob Sellen

Yikes... I had NO issues at all...wow - Susan Beebe

have you restarted it yet? if so.. did it help? :o/ - Rob Sellen

I wish they made this for the latest beta... *groans* Would like to try it out. - Amy D via twhirl

It went sluggish, and it's spiking up processor usage. I hate restarting FF. - MiɳiMagɘ is EnderMage

Mini- hopefully you restarted Firefox and everything is OK! - Susan Beebe

Great ,i translate this post to persian language here : http://imilad.com/1387/10/15/p... thank you susan - Mil∂d

I am still being too stubborn. Since I now use Chrome almost exclusively for FF, and since I ignore almost everything else, FF can just about be as sluggish as it wants to, until I decide to read my email or check the other services again. Restarting anything is against my nature. - MiɳiMagɘ is EnderMage

Mil∂d - awesome!! thanks! :) - Susan Beebe

Mini - yikes, you have to restart your browser if you install add-ons! :D - Susan Beebe

But that's only if I want the add-ons to work, right? - MiɳiMagɘ is EnderMage

Louis -- this answers more or less the question of what FriendFeed shoud have done. Once Twitter really gets inline graphics, the game is over. That's the big feature advantage that FF has over Twitter. - Dave Winer

No way, Dave! When Twitter lets us hook all our services into it in a manner similar to FriendFeed, _then_ the game is over. Inline graphics is just an incremental improvement. - Chris Charabaruk for Hire

OTOH they aren't competing, anyway. Twitter and FriendFeed serve different purposes, and there's no reason for them to try and do the same thing, the same way. - Chris Charabaruk for Hire

twitter as a company has no innovation what so ever. I haven't seen any innovation come out of this company in the last few years. Even the search which works great was an acquisition. Extremely disappointing. - Akshay Dodeja

Akshay - correct. Twitter acquired "summize" search which is now their search feature...that's it! - Susan Beebe

loving power twitter... the @replies are great..finally! phew! - Susan Beebe

I agree it's cool. But my only problem with these site enhancers (like this and the Cleaner FriendFeed script) is I get used to them and don't realize that the people I'm interacting with are seeing things in a different way. - Paul Reynolds

"Anyway, I think I know what they should do, and it isn't on Louis's list. But I wonder why I should give them the idea. This goes back to the point Arrington made a week ago, and then made again in his scolding of Scoble -- why are you working for these guys for free? It's a good question and one that bothers me, a lot." - Ontario Emperor

Compare with the July 2008 Valleywag post "Calacanis, Scoble, Arrington pawns in FriendFeed's smart marketing campaign" http://valleywag.gawker.com/50... which discussed how FriendFeed would recommend these users to other users. If Gray is right (and the stats seem to show that he is), then FriendFeed DID have a marketing strategy, but it wasn't enough. - Ontario Emperor

I re-read the Valleywag article, and realized that Winer was one of the "Popular FriendFeeders" that FriendFeed recommended. We're all in a hall of echoes. - Ontario Emperor

Ontario: there are tens of thousands of farsi users on friendfeed. Explain why you never see them if we're all in a hall of echoes. Hint: there isn't just one friendfeed. Everyone's experience on friendfeed is different. - Robert Scoble

No, I've got to say ,not well echoed! - Shine

Wonder how FriendFeed's summer recommendation campaign played with them... - Ontario Emperor

But after SXSW was the FailWhale fiasco - the service (Twitter) just wasn't ready. FriendFeed is still maturing, I support them in growing organically. Why can't the rest of the active members? - Mona N.

Note to self - perhaps a comparison of marketing strategies is in order, especially since I just read a reminder in Winer's feed that the 25th anniversary of the Mac is approaching. Perhaps FriendFeed should do a Super Bowl commercial? :) - Ontario Emperor

Mona, good point - Twitter's good press was followed by a ton of bad press before the good press started coming back. But at least Twitter got press, and is getting it. I wonder if there's a danger that organic growth may not be fast enough; to quote Kirk Cameron, FriendFeed may be "left behind." - Ontario Emperor

Products that are newbie-hostile have a very steep hill to climb. - Dave Winer

FF has a very good product that can be used for more than just this, they just need to get over the idea that number of users alone isn't the only way to sell their product. I'd hire a reports developer and get a reporting module up as quickly as possible, or buy out ffholic. Then put their system together with datamining and they can offer something that is missing - a lowcost way of monitoring all the different monitoring systems that exists and then deriving stats out of them. - alphaxion

@Dave I definitely agree, and couldn't have said it better myself. I'd like to think I can get my local friends in on any new social service out there or at least sell them on it, but everyone I've tried to hook into FF has responded negatively, saying they just don't get it or have no clue what they're doing. - Jonathan Hardesty

There's loads of potential for making profit out of their code if you can look beyond the cloud and social media. "The Overseer, powered by friendfeed technologies" - alphaxion

alphaxion, good technical ideas, but what about mindspace? We're forced to go back to Louis Gray's point that FriendFeed does not appear to have marketers - or if they do (if you believe Valleywag) then their marketing strategies are extremely erratic. I would bet that if you said the words "friend feed" to 1000 people, 999 of them would think that you were talking about a picnic or a restaurant. Say "face book" to 1000 people, and a sizable minority of them will think of a particular website. Perhaps Mona is right and FriendFeed doesn't have to be on the tip of everyone's tongue, but perhaps not. - Ontario Emperor

Dave - Agreed. I love FriendFeed, but will be first to admit it's far from perfect. But I trust them and know they are listening to every single one of us. ;) - Mona N.

@ontario so far they have used us to good effect for getting a base level of mindshare and in getting the word out without splurging loads of dollars on marketing. I do think they need to identify how they're going to make money first and then begin marketing to their target rather than sniping with shotguns. - alphaxion

I ended up writing a four-post series on "social media marketing," or how social media companies perform (or don't perform) marketing for themselves. The FriendFeed entry is at http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2... - Ontario Emperor

And the Twitter one is at http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2... By the way, in addition to quoting from Gray, Winer, and others, I did use some snippets from this thread from alphaxion and Mona N. Good points. - Ontario Emperor

If the comparison between Twitter and FriendFeed is PC vs Mac, then who really cares about the former since nobody can agree on the latter? - Ari Herzog

5:16 am for me and I am about to go to sleep. what the hell is wrong with me - Josh Haley

Emma! you got on too late! or early...or something! :-) well, hopefully i'll catch ya later on.... :-D GN! <3 - Live4Soccer

Nite hubs :) - Mona N.

GN, wifey-poo <3 - Live4Soccer

get to bed, Josh!!!! - Live4Soccer

I sleep, therefore I yawn. - Jemm

René Descartes could nap like a madman... - Johnny Worthington

cute!! - Mystika

Wow great photo! Cute!!!! - Susan Beebe

So very cute. [Oh no. That's unleashing a powerful desire for a second child...powerful uterine tug...help!] - Abby Martin