Misanthropic Geek - Latest Comments

Re: IS THE PIZZA HERE YET OR WHAT

Louis Gray — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:54:47 -0000

Pizza!

Re: The Apple Tablet vs. The ‘Apple’ Tablet

lead net pro download — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 09:27:12 -0000

Does it have what it takes to beat Apple's tablet? Firstly, the tablet has its own User Interface running over a Windows 7 Premium operating system. ...

Re: Gaming Update

ninja halloween costumes — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:05:52 -0000

Nice I'm playing fallout 3 too. Prototype also is a very good game.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Dave Richardson — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:57:51 -0000

It's even more important to maintain civility online because of the lack of body language, and the tone of the voice. This is especially hard with people you know well. One who looks for a friend without faults will have none.

They should add what you've written as a disclaimer on every network site:
“If you have any group of people who constantly interact with each other in what has become an essentially closed environment, you end up with the social networking equivalent of cabin fever.”

New people are the lifeblood. So if you care about your group then it pays to invest at least a little of your effort in being welcoming and helpful to newbies.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

fugitive247 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:50:13 -0000

Thank you, Akiva, for taking the time to write this excellent piece. The sad thing is that scenarios such as the one you painstakingly describe, occur with disturbing frequency within numerous social networks at any given time. FriendFeed certainly isn't the first to experience this, nor will it be the last. Akiva, I believe you've inadvertently written the definitive playbook for how many a formerly productive community's parting shot is in its own collective foot.

I don't recall how long ago I signed up on FriendFeed, but it was at the urging of some friends. Life took priority over online activity, forcing me into an extended hiatus. During that time those mutual friends migrated away from active participation on FF, so by the time I was able to return, it just wasn't the same.

A few months ago a new friend, who'd been very active on FF, suggested I give it another try. Thanks to him I'm glad to have met a couple of other great individuals, but all the in-fighting within a largely cliquish community is ample motivation to explore other opportunities.

It might be worthwhile to note that I found this entry linked at Gravity.com, a private beta start-up. Jimminy mentioned Pip.io, plus there's plenty of variety to be found on Ning and elsewhere. I read earlier today that Yahell's got their sights on Grou.ps. All I can say about that imminent train wreck is... suckers!

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Dave Hodson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:27:46 -0000

You should really check out Quora - totally different in some ways, but in other ways completely reminds me of FF

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

axisportals — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:07:06 -0000

Hardly ever even login to FF any more, except via FB from time to time. Once the discussion in any tool becomes mostly self-referential (in this instance, it was why FF matters, whether to go or stay, the ethical and moral arguments either way, etc.) then it generally feels like time to leave. I still like FF much better than FB, but it's one of those "if it's good in theory but not good in practice then it's not really good in theory, either" sorts of things. Same thing happened on Plurk, which is also not for the lazy, and which I also like way better than FB.

In some ways, these smaller tools (in the grand scheme of things) remind me of the trade offs of attending private vs. public schools. The community is smaller and tends to be highly literate, but the things that are good about that kind of self-selection can also prove challenging as people weary of one another, and the whole begins to seem somehow too closed a system.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Akiva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:55:46 -0000

As I see it, relevance is dependent on the community which is dependent on the technology. You need attractive and forward-thinking technology before a community will become interested in it and you need a community to become interested in it before you can really drum up relevance. Of course, there's give-and-take between these three pillars (e.g., you need relevance to draw the community but without a community, it's hard to describe a site as relevant even if it has great tech).

Where Pip.io's excelling is that they're not just trying to be a replacement for Twitter or Facebook or FriendFeed. They're positioning themselves as a kind of social networking operating system, as kind of a nexus for your activity. Ultimately, they'd like people to see Pip.io as a unified (and one day highly customizable) front-end to other social networking sites and they'll achieve this by creating an app-driven environment quite like Facebook. And where FriendFeed failed due to too much complexity upfront, Pip.io succeeds because it just presents itself as a kind of conflation of Twitter and IM with the ability to interface to other sites as a gateway or aggregator or what have you. In other words, it starts off lean and lets you add as much complexity as you like.

Right now, what makes Pip.io so compelling is that David and Leo are incredibly receptive to suggestions and criticism and their development process is as transparent as they can possibly make it. They're also very agile and push out updates and fixes, usually based on specific user requests, on a regular basis. It's almost a collaborative experience.

Pip.io has the technology and it deserves the relevance and the community is slowly building up. People keep coming back and checking things out as new updates arrive and after each update, more and more people keep sticking around. A lot of people really, really want Pip.io to work but as much as David and Leo wanted Pip.io to be out there and 1.0, it's honestly still an unfinished beta: mostly bug free but definitely feature incomplete. This is why a lot of people are kind of waiting in the wings to see where it goes next before fully investing into it.

Maybe I'm cheering for the wrong team here but Pip.io's the most excited I've been about any social networking site since FriendFeed and I certainly don't like the major alternatives. Pip.io may be a dark horse but it definitely isn't DOA.

I think I need to write a full post about Pip.io today or tomorrow; especially while I've currently the attention of a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't know I existed.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Louis Gray — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:41:28 -0000

I understand Jimminy's concern about consolidation, but I also think Pip.io probably isn't the answer. If you need three pillars for success, being community, technology and relevance, you just cited that Pip.io does not have the first of those three. FriendFeed, at one time, had all three. Now, it has a smaller community and less relevance. Over time, others are catching the technology too. Do you see Pip.io leading in any of those three categories over time?

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Akiva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:11:55 -0000

Again, liked for the [accidental] Oregon Trail reference.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

mathewballard — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:44:05 -0000

I think you hit the nail on the head. The same thing started happening to me a couple of months ago. I would find a few good things to get into but then I found everything else boring (other then the great images and such).

Then I started looking for new people and found there really weren't a ton of people that I wasn't already following. I have also found that interaction in groups has gone down as well. So even my interest there has waned.

I hate saying this...but, I think friendfeed really is on it's last legs and by year end will be left to die on the side of the social trail of dysentery.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

DGentry — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:33:57 -0000

I hadn't thought things through as well as you did here. Friendfeed has definitely become less interesting for me as well, but I hadn't associated it with a case of cabin fever. Thank you for the insight.

I was never as big a friendfeed user as many whom you normally interact with. Prior to the FB acquisition I'd spend perhaps an hour at a time, a few times a week. That isn't enough to rise above the background radiation. Therefore though Friendfeed has become less interesting to me as well, I suspect the gap was far smaller than what others have experienced.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

DGentry — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:30:08 -0000

I think perhaps that is true of all purely online interactions: skim, not trawl. We lack so much context in online communication: no facial expressions, no gestures, neither tone of voice nor cadence. The kind of deep discussion you might be able to have in person can not happen online. The online discussion gets derailed by minutia well before getting to the point of being truly interesting.

Online interaction provides sound bites.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Martha S — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:59:11 -0000

Probably doesn't bear repeating, but I can see changes in patterns and content as well. I definitely get the sense that diminished quality stems from changes from above that have reduced participation and depth /scope of quality. You do hit the nail on the head - the stream has to flow to prevent stagnation.

It is sad to see, from one who has loved the service since starting with it.

Martha

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Mark Trapp — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:56:59 -0000

My subscriber count has slowly dwindled from a high of 500 to currently about 100 because of the issues you talk about here. Every once in a while I'll check out what people are bringing in via friend-of-a-friend, and it's pretty insipid and vile.

If you're not careful about who you follow, you can easily walk into the Mad Max of social networks: a post-apocalyptic dystopia ruled by a mob who is more interested in perpetuating its chaotic existence than solving its problems.

There's still pockets of goodness left in FriendFeed, and because of that, it's still one of my destination sites. It's unfortunate that it requires abandoning the notion that it's a functioning community at large and narrowly focusing on who is really valuable and important.

Red-rum.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Akiva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:10:56 -0000

You know, you bring up an interesting point when you write that '[e]verything is slowly being reduced down to Facebook or Google'. That, in and of itself, is a kind of stagnation, as well. What kind of choice is that, really?

I think that's what draws me toward Pip.io so much. It's kind of the Linux of social networking right now. The only thing it lacks is a community and that's tough to build when people seem to drive-by expecting an experience already in progress that rivals what they have at Twitter, Facebook, or FriendFeed.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

djinn1973 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:46:51 -0000

Glad it's not just me...

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

James Fuller — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:21:56 -0000

It is definitely maddening to see it stagnate, before if I wanted to boost my enjoyment all I had to do was wait for someone new to come down the line. Lately, I've had to hide liberally for the first time since I started using the service to squeeze any value out of it. I think I'm going to slowly lift my roots, and head towards Pip.io, while either finding some other platform or just giving up.

I've even been feeling upset about the state of the web, because it to is stagnating, by reduction of competition. Everything is slowly being reduced down to Facebook or Google. There is value out there, but it's harder to find.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Akiva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:19:51 -0000

And that kind of sums up the FriendFeed experience for me now: it's best to skim.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Akiva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:18:43 -0000

Thanks, Louis, and I agree with you completely.

In retrospect, I wish I would have dressed this up in melancholy rather than bitterness but I think I've written enough in soulful eulogy for FriendFeed. This was a tough entry to write because I'm having to face up to the one thing that I didn't want to face up to: my denial.

FriendFeed may not be dead but my hope for it is.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

Louis Gray — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:04:21 -0000

I love the images. :)

FriendFeed's reduced usage is no fault of the community, but of the leadership, which is full of people who I like and respect personally, but who have done nothing to give the community any positive guidance. I do not believe we can anticipate Facebook investing in this "backwater burg", and should assume no influx of users you find interesting.

Participate as you will and share as you like, but expect diminishing returns. Disappointing yes, but realistic.

Re: It’s Not Me, It’s You, FriendFeed

brlewis — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:20:15 -0000

The race discussions included black people explaining their point of view in an incredibly measured way, which left me very impressed, considering how personal and sensitive the issue was. That was well worth skimming through a lot of not-so-good comments. FriendFeed is still a uniquely valuable place to be. Yes, the fantastic experience takes work, but elsewhere you won't ever get it, no matter how much work you put in.

Re: Oh, yeah! If Buzz can be FriendFeed, the…

Louis Gray — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:30:05 -0000

You are FriendFeed. I salute you.

Re: Oh, yeah! If Buzz can be FriendFeed, the…

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:50:59 -0000

OK, I want lists and groups. Before Facebook buys you out.

Re: iPad: The MacBook Air of 2010

David Ahn — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:10:19 -0000

Akiva, wow, unbelievable! Exactly what I was just writing to my friend.

You hit the nail right on the head. What were they all expecting it to do? End world hunger, cure acne, get them dates, direct brain interface... what? Or, waaaaah, I want it smaller, thinner, lighter, more powerful, longer battery life, and cheaper, but I don't want to give up my camera, my memory card reader slots, my USB3, firewire, HDMI, widescreen, physical keyboard, my multitasking...

And the tired old "it's just a bigger iPhone/iPod Touch!" Uh, 7.8 times the screen surface area. Seriously? Here's what you're saying: "Your yacht sucks, it's just a bigger version of my rowboat!" "Your girlfriend's DD's are just a bigger version of my girlfriend's A's!" "Your 200 IQ is just a bigger version of my 75 IQ." Need I go on? Size matters, and in some cases, enable whole new capabilities. The newfound real estate will enable a whole new class of apps (desktop-level), only with completely new, more natural ways of interacting them.

It's a whole new class of device: an ultraportable, multitouch personal computing device. It's a brave new world, and you don't even know it yet, people.

David