With Twitter down this morning and reports of failure all over the social Web, I figured FriendFeed would be up, if denuded by the Twitter outage. Well, sorta. In fact, FriendFeed searches are down. How the hell does a denial of service attack plague reach into the coolest service no-one will ever use, as former user Mike Arrington once put it. Is the realtime Web screeching to a halt on purpose, did rssCloud have something to do with making things too really simple, or what? For now, I’ll Blame FriendFeed.
As long as FriendFeed keeps rolling out updates to realtime, FriendFeediots like myself are smug in our uber view that no matter what happens to the rest of the Web, regardless of whether Google buys a patent-safe video codec for HTML 5, not caring whether Apple and AT&T collude to keep Google Voice out of the carrier business, not worried about whether the Sun/Oracle deal is held up for months, etc. — no matter what, FriendFeed will solve all of my social media problems before anybody else does.
Now search is back up, so I really should stop worrying. After all, one of the advantages of being small is that your problems are relatively smaller. Even as the normal realtime chatter resumes — Scoble at some Boulder startup event, someone asking how to import Twitter replies, Drudge headlines Twitter outage, Facebook “transport errors”, Leo Laporte says no Windows Weekly because Paul is in Paris and can’t get a decent connection — I still can’t get past the reality that when Twitter farts, FriendFeed becomes a complete and total gasbag. After months of innovation, revamped APIs, advanced realtime features, and Scoble pruning his Twitter follows because FriendFeed’s cloud is more manageable, FriendFeed is still a parasite on a pimple on Twitter’s ass.
Of course, I don’t feel better even now. Blaming FriendFeed doesn’t reduce my own guilt. Endlessly promoting the advantages of realtime, the ephemeral return of Track, playing Laconica and Facebook and FriendFeed off in a pathetic attempt at coaxing a response out of Twitter, goading Dave Winer into overhauling RSS. None of it in any way meaningful, when it all still comes down to whether Twitter is up or down. For all of FriendFeed’s power, it still is best at being a Twitter client. Albeit a Twitter client that is modeling the transition of micromessaging to an enterprise class backbone.
Alright, now I’m beginning to shake this off. Stream splicing is still to be released in the next 30 days, I’m told. The PubSubHubbubGlubglub integration with Google Reader is lightning fast. The RSS is better than Twitter argument thread is humming. Scoble is being attacked for starting a Twitter unfollow trend. Breathing deeper now, it’s all good. Get back to work, Arrington says less Yammering, more posting. I Blame FriendFeed.
To me the Twitter outage is an argument to getting developers serious about RSScloud so we can break away from old school centralized hubs like Twitter and FriendFeed and into a more federated model. Steve please help Dave Winer to make this happen:
http://rsscloud.org
No hyperlinks in article?? at least to “service nobody uses” old tc post?
The first thing Steve could help with is encouraging the FF guys to support the element in RSS. Scripting News has one, as do a couple of the feeds in the rssCloud group on FF. I added one to the Bad Hair Day podcast feed, and it will be on Rebooting the News when we come out with our next episode. Plenty of stuff to test with.
I’d really like to say they’re on board. So far they’ve committed to looking at it. I want them to implement it, looking at things is crap.
Oy your commenting system ate my <cloud>
I’ve been “looking at things” way too much lately. Thanks Dave for reminding me it’s implement or die when it comes to ideas.
I can’t help but dig the terseness or efficacy of that concept.
i wonder, don’t you think it’s about time real-time moves to real real-time, i.e. persistent TCP connections? there was some implementation over xmpp in synapseIM
Thou hast only thyself to blame.
Gilmour,
Your writing is more stale than a plate of lox left in to soak in the summer sun.
At least he knows how to spell Gillmor you little troll!
But I like spelling it Gillmour. I’m not a troll either. I just post by my realz self.
I’ve not really decided I care enough to make sure my spelling it correct. I apologize.
Truth is, I get more enjoyment at laughing at my own self-made mistakes and the side arguments lesser minds make of them because they lack a better response to the subject matter.
I think there’s a profound quote something about he who steers the argument… but I cannot really be bothered to remember it properly or look it up.
I applaud your using your own name.
Check the IP logs. Hope you’re not implying there was a time whenever not used my own name.
I’m not saying you are. Just saying I hope you’re not. There’s a difference, I think.
But I’m not a good writer. I’d probably be wrong.
Yet another interesting aspect to this event is how Steve has decided to respond to various comments, and not others.
This is way more interesting than the original article. But that’s just my opinion.
It’s that suppose to be “you’re using” your own name?
“Your using” doesn’t seem right.
Ah maybe it’s right. My grammar is pretty bad. Applaud your using, is that like a possessive verb or something. It’s nice that these comments can turn into English lessons. I can use them.
Another point is I don’t think it’s proper to complain about Dov’s spelling of Gilmourz when Phillmor dun wrote:
“I Blame FriendFeed.”
Using a captial B for blame. Now that’s just not proper grammar and I cannot has good grammar.
Do you have a severe case of ADD? Why do you keep on replying to yourself?
I just using the comments to comment on comments.
Why do you like to comment on a comment thread about something not related to either the subject of the article or the comments?
Or maybe I have a nerofibrosis on my scalp that has started growing recently and could possibly be a brain tumor that is affecting my behavior.
Or, I suppose I could have ADD. Without healthcare reform, I cannot really answer your question.
Einstein would probably have reconsidered saying “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, had he known you would come prancing along.
Enjoyed the article steve.
I disagree with prancing, I am streaking. There’s a big difference.
And Einstein felt stifled in school/higher-ed, he felt limited by closed minds that were not open to new ideas or different ways of thinking.
He would not have changed his mind.
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?”
Corrected: Einstein would probably have reconsidered saying “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, had he known you would come streaking along.
Thats better.
It’s possible he may have considered it, but would probably have rejected the idea.
Or, he may have seen some sorta of significance in the binary streaking of text in an article comment thread to have deep meaning as it relates to super massive black holes or the Alice CERN experiments to study quark-gluon plasma.
Or, he may have argued that pseudo-streaking is more important than the commenting about a quotee based on a quoter l as if the fact that someone quoting him or the behavior of people quoting him could possibly change his mind.
In fact, this may have only reinforced his idea that imagination is more important than knowledge. You, claiming knowledge, or claiming to know what Einstein may have reconsidered, and me using imagination to suggest a potential alternative that you would not have otherwise considered.
Knowledge assumes and limits while imagination is open to all.
So while he may have considered the idea and been open to it considering the nature of the statement, he indeed probably would not have reconsidered the statement. He probably would have told you the direct opposite and said it’s only more true.
I am lost. Could you simplify it a bit, without making it too simple.
For you, the simplest thing would probably be:
shut up
or
think
Yea, think is probably most simple. Is that too simple? My bad, you said not too simple. I’m not good at this. I didn’t know there were degrees to simple.
Let’s go with this, and it’s just a theory…
Don’t be a Gillmor fanboy and attack people just because you’re biased.
Or not that you’re so much a Gillmor fanboy, but that you too also have pimples on your ass and were frustrated with FF and twitter being down.
Remember, these are only theories.
See what I did there? I tried to actually make this relevant to this comment thread and the topic.
Might wanna try that more.
Well, this last comment seems mean spirited. Einstein himself was a great fan of simplicity. Anyways, pretty decent of you to be less imaginative with the spelling of gillmor, so I will take your advice and “shut up or think”. –regards
Sorry if that was mean spirited. Perhaps it was more mean spirited than you saying I’m “prancing” about to the degree that would cause even Einstein to reconsider himself. Perhaps it wasn’t. I’m not really sure.
At the same time cotweet warned us that Twitter was supposedly being hit with a DOS attack StumbleUpon was giving errors and Facebook was flaky.
Am I the only one who wants to know why multiple major sites hiccup at the same time? What do they have in common? What is behind these outages? I have my theories and would like to know yours.
I have no idea what I just read.
Are you high? drunk?
lol I was thinkg exactly the same thing!
I dunno…something about Scoble and pimples.
please never write like this again. My head hurts from just trying to figure out what you said…
For a while I thought I was the only one.
Exactly my thoughts.
Why does Steve ALWAYS write like he is stoned?
Steve Gillmore is a fat idiot and I hate him
sucks to be you
Worst. Comments. Ever.
(another user generated all time high)
Hmmm…there’s a major problem affecting quite a few services across the net and this is the best article you could come up with?
Techcrunch usually has better stuff than this.
How about tracking down how many services were affected, what theories were proposed about why the DDoS attack happened, perhaps get to the point that it seems aimed at a pro-Georgian fellow who had stuff on all the affected services?
Then you’d have an informative article.
This article didn’t really do much.
The comments on this thread are more entertaining and more informative than the article. I hope they’re not deleted by Arrington SS Nazi killers.
It’s funny that there’s no mention of the Russion Georgian guy that was suppose to have been the target of the DOS? I think that’s accurate, not sure cause I read it on twitter and some other blog.
http://ow.ly/jk0X
So, what exactly are you saying Steve? Did someone accidentally press the publish button on a draft here?
no, you have to get Twitter’s approval on any Internet post.
This went over my head.
Um. Is that sarcasm? Or a bad joke. This is not the type of thoughtful TC writing I’m used to enjoying from the majority of the well thought TC articles I see posted to twitter.
This event creates all sorts of scenarios.
I’m envisioning a guy with pimples on his ass, frustrated with the outage of twitter and FF because of a daily addiction one or both.
There are other ways to look at it, but this is probably the closest to the truth.
Anyway, Google Wave when it’s ready is more than likely going to pown you and everyone else. So all this conjecture about this or that is nothing more than a pimple on the ass of Techcrunch.
I need to take a shower now.
Dear 4Chan: We need to launch some sort of DDoS attack on Steve Gillmor’s horrible, horrible posts, which are categorized in the “enterprise” section of TechCrunch but which are actually nothing more than an endless diarrhea-like stream of clueless, preening, boring blathering about Twitter, which, by the way, is not enterprise software.
Dude, I posted a joke along these lines but it was removed. I think there a worry some dumbass would actually get the idea and do what you’re proposing. And idea that they would not otherwise get on their own.
Wow, lots of trolls on TC. This reminds me of World of Warcraft forums. Be curious to know the real statistics.
k, seeya in a few when or if another TC related event pops up with drama about someone bashing something or someone else (like the Gillmor gang Arrington snafu). Enough comment diarrhea for me. But, this was kinda cool.
Is this English?
The PubSubHubbubGlubglub sounds like something you would buy from Subway!
I can see why Friendfeed is perceived as operating best as a Twitter client, if you use the web based aggregator for that purpose then that’s what you get from the service.
I think to truly immerse yourself into Friendfeed requires a significant contribution although time isn’t something many people have available.
I have missed your essays Steve..thoughts on the real time search vs other search modes debate?
Great scott Steve! Friendfeed is more than just a pimple on the ass of twitter. It’s a playground for the conversationalists, the shareaholics, the Steve Gilmorites.
Now if Twitter were down for a couple of weeks friendfeed would really start to explode with Twitter pipers and marketers, and of course the rest of the social savy world.
Great post, many thanks for the entertaining read :)
TC really does employ the bottom of the barrel “writers”. With all the money this place generates, it’s embarrassing.
I have to disagree there is some really good writing on TC. I enjoy a good majority of the articles.
I wish there was a Gillmor gang on this weekend to digest this weeks happenings. I miss the show.
Hey Steve,
Glad to hear you are a “FriendFeediot” (lol) – we at TechPitch.com use it to post our “spotlight” posts and have it copy it to twitter. Just found out that many of our posts this morn didn’t really make it to twitter. (so had to post some breaking news on “VmMare acquiring Springsource” directly on to Twitter.
Also, Steve, We would love to have you take a look at at TechPitch.com. We focus on Business technology – that’s the street you drive your car on, right? So, what do you think?? Would love to hear your first thoughts / impressions. Thanks!!
Thank you for sharing, I thought.
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