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If I were you, I would seriously decrease the amount of time on both Twitter and FriendFeed. The content you post there isn't nearly as important as a thoughtful blog post; on the contrary, it's very forgettable content. It's understandable to spend some time on both those services but seven hours just doesn't seem logical.
Focus on your blog and make that your top priority. I miss the regular updates and would love to see them back in the near future.
Saying you spend too much time FriendFeeding is like telling Mike that he spends too much time blogging, or that Chris Brogan does too many speaking events.
And as someone who is just as invested in FriendFeed as you are, and started earlier, you'd be surprised how little time is actually needed, versus other activities. I've been tracking it since November 7th.
http://wakoopa.com/louisgray/usage
If you are comfortable with commenting on the news more instead of making it, then keep on doing what you are doing. If it is driving business and results for you then more power to you! I will say that I very rarely read the blog anymore but I don't feel any less connected.
I tend to agree more with Mike on this one. Spending a lot of time on either platform can harm your "zen".
So many people have online assistants nowadays, that deal with the immense flow of information every day, so you can actually focus on the information you need and can get a real value out of.
You can still interact with the ones around quite well, as a matter of fact I myself had a couple of good conversations with you, courtesy of Twitter.
So I recommend organizing your information flow and taking some time for yourself & family.
Otherwise you'll regret it later. I know that for a fact.
Lorand
I think Hany has a point with the originality of content. In fact, this is the first time I've ever been on this website and now that I have a "feel" for it - I will bookmark and return often. I don't need to see you or find you on Twitter or Friendfeed to know that your opinions and analysis of news events carry far and wide.
It sounds to me like FriendFeed is making a shellacking off of your expertise.
Why continue to feed the obese golden goose and starve yourself?
Gotta side with Mike on this one, I miss your longer pieces on the blog, thats what I followed Robert Scoble for, not the sound bytes or the 140 characters on twitter.
I find Friendfeed way too much work and I just dont have the bandwidth to consume that much information (twitter is hard enough already)
Would love to see you blogging more and whilstI know you break the stories before most people they are in short bursts and I am really unsure what your analysis of those stories are.
Looking forward to seeing you back on the blog more in 2009.
Have a great Christmas.
It's only in the last month that I have re-started the effort to comment at source. If I have anything more than a few short words to say about a post or photo, I'll do it on the blog. Otherwise it's FriendFeed.
I never got hooked on friendfeed or twitter as I'm not that interested in what people are doing every minute of every day, I'd rather meet up or pick up the phone and participate in a good old fashioned chin wag. Don't get me wrong I'm a passionate technologist but I feel that yourself and others ( Techcrunch included ) are doing nothing for the tech industry when you bypass news of the latest innovations and exciting start-ups in favour of reporting on [ yet another ] site that you can update multiple twitter accounts or embed friendfeed into your facebook profile.
I think the phrase "get a life" is too strong and not that relevant here however "get your life back" fits perfectly
Conversations are nice, at times. But when you’re a leader on a particular topic (tech trends, aircraft engineering, wine, whatever), you’re frequently at your best when you trust your talent and dial back the feedback from others. You might just be spending valuable mind resources on quasi-relevant banter with folks who add little to your day. If that comes off as an arrogant statement, so be it. Those around you can deal with it, or move on. If you’re legit, they already know it.
Again, I’m not calling out everybody on FriendFeed. But I’m willing to bet that you could dial it back significantly and see a return to form very quickly.
Leaders.
Talent.
And let it be known that I am completely on board with Twitter as a service. I'm embracing it. But I hope that it will not detract from what could be quality writing by the folks using it.
What a healthy business you've become.
Do take some time to read this, it's not 140 words. It's a blog comment :)
I would think that both you and Mike have your own valid points, and I imagine that neither of you is wrong because each believes in different perspective at this point of time. But both of you are on a common topic, what is a better use of time?
Seriously speaking, I think Mike is trying to advise you to focus on the long term side of the equation minus the short term sacrifice effect (losing some blog readers due to less posts). He meant good, just it's been made public. Good thinking topic though for the audience by the ringside *Winks*
How does the comparison goes?
It's not totally comparable, A is A like Ayn Rand's philosophy.
Blogging is A, FF and Twitter is B.
Blog posts stay for a "very long time" on the web and is searchable, sort of running like autopilot. FF and Twitter posts have a short lifespan, it seems to me more like a Instant Messenge (MSN) on steroids, reaching those online with a single click and message.
Blog posts reaches people who are not (not yet) connected to you on Friendfeed and Twitter. You on the other hand, I would think have seen another side of things...two words, Potential and Enjoyment.
IMAGINE:
Let's say a person has 50k RSS readers only (without any other social media sidekicks) and he writes a new blog post asking for action on a cause which needs immediate attention, let's say donate to the Earthquake victims. Would it be useful by the time everyone on RSS (very very optimistic to say "every", more like 30-40%) decides to read your post and by the time they react, like a week later, the sense of urgency in the post is already gone. Result, small impact.
NOW,
If the same person has 50k RSS readers, 50K Friendfeed friends, 50K Twitter friends and he writes a blog post about the urgency of the Earthquake situation, scheduled Tweets on Twitter around the clock (automated) and asks for action for his Friendfeed friends to action upon the situation. Ask them to DIGG, STUMBLEUPON, Propeller, Reddit and all that arsenal of weapons to up the rating of that post and because that person actually does chat with his friends on Friendfeed and Twitter, established a relationship and trust between a few thousand of his online friends over the years...
WHAT HAPPENS?
Like Warren Buffet's book title...it snowballs, a small blog post followed by an avalanche of actions, some we may not even expect but because of the genius of one of your contacts, did something totally unexpected.
Using the Earthquake example, he may have a friend whose family in at the Earthquake zone and because he got the information quickly, he could assemble his own superman efforts to bring a whole gang of rescuers (who are not Techfans or use the internet regularly) to the scene. That would make an impact, perhaps save many more lives. (Trapped Earthquake victims need to be saved fast, the longer the delay, the less chance of survival.)
SUMMARY
Think of it this way, a Blog is like a Newspaper, a one way communication for everyone who is interested, Friendfeed and Twitter is like SMS to friends who exchange information, two way communication.
A post from a newspaper is like "Oic, that's what happened." while a SMS from a mobile phone is "OMG, let's do something about it right now!"
To simplify things, I would think it is a wise thing to keep the "blog-newspaper" readership healthy enough to be satisfied, while growing the "Social Media-SMS" relationships close. As friends, we HELP each other, as readers, people tend to be observers and want to LEARN from you.
A solution? Perhaps turn those short Tweets and posts into a long enough Blog Articles at the end of the day as a summary.
So hurray, Robert can carry on doing what he enjoys and thinks if good, Mike can also carry on doing what he is good at and enjoys.
*Big Smile*
Be on friendly terms again my brothers :) lolz, it was fun while the "battle" lasted.
Your Friend from Singapore
Maynas Eric
http://twitter.com/maynaseric
(I'll post this on Mike's blog too)
From entrepreneur's perspective, I would rather get more content from you here.
Although I would very much like to follow you and participate on friendfeed and twitter, I can only dedicate so much of my focused, daily time to "news." (Right now its 2 hrs) So staying in one place, Google reader, and going through my daily blog roll is much more effective. Also, it takes significant time and effort to really use these services well, which in my case, again, investment that I cannot afford right now. (Which was btw Seth Godin’s reason for not using them. Link below)
So I guess I can say that I’m “suffering” from your addiction and will support intervention to have you fully back here in 2009. :)
Happy holidays and greetings from Russia!
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/02...
Depending on your answer, you may or may not need that intervention and may have crossed the line, not between hobby/interest and addiction, but between addiction and obsession. I think being addicted to something is usually not a bad thing (we're not talking drugs here), but being obsessed it often is.
BTW if your answer is that you've been without seeing your family for three days in a row but it was ok because you could contact them via FriendFeed, then I leave to someone else to do the analysis.
Having said that, do what you like doing as long as you know what your priorities are and stick to them.
Everyone's information life breaks down into three parts. First, writing something which is, to a lesser or greater degree, original - and that's covered off by blogging. Second, there's discovering and surfacing other information for your friends: that's covered by tools like Google Reader's shared items, and (to a less efficient degree, I think) by FF. Then there's discussion, which is covered by both blog comments and FF.
How you mix what you do from these three elements will depend on what you enjoy, and what you enjoy changes. You've had a year when discussing and discovery have been more interesting to you than synthesising ideas into an original post. That's cool - it's a perfectly fine thing to do, if it's what you enjoy.
Personally, I'd like to see a little more of the blogging-Scoble than the Twittering-Scoble. But don't worry about it - isn't the point of this kind of new media that you begin with the audience of one which is yourself?
I've not been on Twitter or FriendFeed very long but it's because I joined I found you and your blog and those of your cronies and have learned so much as a result.
I'm not sure it matters where the buzz is as long as there is one and I'm certain that will happen wherever you are.
I would have been great to see you co-collaborating with Shel again on his new book as lots you can add there I'm sure.
One other thing - I never really watched any of the video interviews since you left Microsoft. The format didn't translate for me outside of the borg but that maybe just me...on the other hand, your Fast company stuff has been great and I think you can bring a lot to them beyond videos.
anyway...happy holidays to your, Maryam, Milan and Patrick!
You are my icon scobleizer.
regards: rizzy
http://twitter.com/rizzy81
My goal isn't to be discussed more. It's to launch ideas and to make a difference. Other people are doing a great job of spreading those ideas into media that they enjoy and I think that's fabulous.
As Gregory pointed out, I'm in no need of more dissing.
Some people are very good at short and quick bits of feedback and interaction with small groups of people. I find I do better when I'm a little longer and a little slower. And some of my colleagues need a month or a year between bursts. Different strokes.
You should be flattered by the people who want you to write more. We miss your bold leadership--leaps, not just increments.
I think part of it depends on who you want to reach, as opposed to who your advertisers want to reach. I know I could spend a lot of time on Twitter and FriendFeed and increase all kinds of stats and connections, but I'd be reaching early adopters there, and I've come to the conclusion that's not the audience I want to reach anymore. I want to help the middle of the bell curve, so I need to get back to blogging. Granted, I'm not running my blog as a business, but I think you should take audience into consideration, too. Who do you want to influence and affect the most?
Blog: Conversation starter, thought leader. Influencer.
Micro-blogging: Conversation continuer, super-connected, know news first.
Also, if a big part of the value you get from Twitter/FF is knowing the news first, you could probably find a way to track the term "breaking". Heck, at your income level you could just HIRE someone to look for things you'd find interesting and ping you with 'em.
Good luck with it!
All things in moderation. I do consider your blog "brand central" and the rest chatter. Your blog is like giving a speech, the rest is bs around a water cooler, even though they can be useful. Your blog is your hub, don't neglect it.
I think I'll prefer to see thoughtful pieces from you on your blog because you have to invest in yourself first. 'Pay yourself first" - your blog then pay others.
( http://culturekitchen.com/liza/blog/to_robert_s... )
here's the comment i was going to leave here initially :
i was going to leave this at Michael's blog, but am going to leave it here, you know, to actually make the point am writing about :D
i've always thought of FF and Twitter as features and not actual platforms. in my book they're not even full services. they're really nifty features waiting for a service. features that, by the way, suck the money community, activity and eventually money out of a blog.
so michael was absolutely right and am aghast at the number of hours he says you've spent. i don't want to look at what my numbers may be.
it's why after working on upgrade and re-designed plans for my blogs, i basically scrapped what i had and went back to the drawing board. i want my blogs to be the platform from which i twitter everything.
i mean, i've never understood why you need FriendFeed when people can have people comment on his blog. FF is just an aggregator Robert. a community aggregator. there's nothing that they do that you can't do, technically, if you ran your blog on Drupal instead of WordPress.
Drupal has several aggregating modules that can turn any site into an FF. why they never took off? as usual, the problem with Drupal developers is that they think of functionality before ease of use. FF is the "Leech" module in Drupal with a really nice UI for creating the profile page.
but let's get back to basics : you like FF because "FF = Twitter + comments". it's the virtual water cooler chat we don't get because we work from home. i like to describe more like a cocktail party as well.
Twitter rocks for me (and FF rocks for you) because i don't have to be committed to a linear narrative the way have to with each blog post. so obviously the issue here is that we need a way to have comments on twitterings just like FriendFeed WHILE BRINGING THOSE CONVERSATIONS BACK TO OUR BLOGS --and that has to be done through the platform your twittering from. that platform for professional bloggers has to be ... ahem ... the blogs.
in my case what i'd like to have in the re-desing is the results i get with the current hookup i have for twittering : IM/Google Talk + Ping.FM.
if i can basically have my site function like a Ping.FM, then i'll be able to have the kind of microblogging fun i've found in twitter. of course the issu here is the aggregation of the "twitterbacks". if twitterings had permalinks that identified the orginating twittering from the replies, then we'd be in business. their sloppiness is there for a reason : they take away value from our blogs by denying easy aggregation.
anyhow, back to my technological solution.
in my case, even though there's a Ping.FM module for Drupal 6, i have to run my sites for awhile in D5 until we're able to finish importing static pages from a legacy site. so i either need to have someone back-port that module OR i'll have to look into maybe using some email function to have the pinging happening in real time through my blog. any way it happens though, it has to happen through my blog, not just through my IM or Twitkit UI.
anyhow, am glad Michael brought this up because, indeed, no service is a good service to bloggers if it doesn't bring back value to their blog. as it is right now, neither Twitter nor FriendFeed do that.
and am still amazed that none of these companies pay you for the value you bring them. i mean, i can understand not paying me because i can't pull 23K followers even though a lot of these startups think of me as influential enough to pitch me all the friggin' time. but you, my friend, bring something to these services that is worth you're weight in gold. pull out of FF. take all your content out as an experiment. am sure they'd get massively hit w/o your presence.
but there's also something more to think about Robert : you're eagerness to do this work for free hurts us all professional bloggers out there. it hurts our economy because, if someone like Robert Scoble will do R&D or marketing for a company for free, why wouldn't a shmuckette like Liza "blogdiva" Sabater?
as probably the most influential tech blogger individual out there, you need to ask people the hard question of, "how is this going to enhance my blog and make it more valuable". this is the very question i asked back in 2007 about Twitter when we were in SXSW and it was the very same question that nobody was able to answer.
this is one case in which the "trickle down economics" make sense to me. if you establish that your influence has a price, the rest of us will be able to capitalize more effectively on our influence as well.
I would re-focus on blogging Robert.
-Stiennon
there's a whole different skill set involved and set of intellectual muscles. and just like with any muscle they can get exhausted after years of use.
it's not an either/or proposition this writing thing. what we need to change is the way we treat blogs. they need to evolve into being aggregating platforms as well as broadcasting platforms.
Technology is grand. It's great for education, entertainment, business and more. However, I sure am glad my family, nature, and other sources pull me off the grid -- frequently.
All about balance
Sadly, I didn't follow you once on friendfeed/twitter throughout 2008, but did keep coming to your blog. Every time I went to your friendfeed page, it was just too messy and disjointed to give me anything to really read - signal to noise problem IMHO.
Unlike your blog where the focus is the content, with comments to complement, ff is basically all comments with little content - and not that interesting to someone that isn't so heavily plugged in as yourself and doesn't spend as much time following.
I hope you keep blogging, because you're an insightful guy with interesting things to say, too bad all that seems to be lost with what makes it to ff/twitter.... not your fault, just some of the limitations of microblogging.
Have a great holiday!
Since you've been doing videos your blog pretty much serves as an advertising space where you say "Here, watch this video for this reason."
I guess if 22K people actually follow you and pay attention to your feed, then there is a lot of value in that though.
So I guess the only thing else I would suggest is balance. Don't let one media platform dominate your message and mission. Look at the Newspaper industry. If they would have embraced the Internet 10-15 years ago and developed an outstanding online presence to compliment their traditional print service, they would have been better off during the transition to the purely digital media platform that is becomming the norm.
On a side note and just my opinion, seven hours a day is a lot of time in front of the computer doing twits and ff. Don't you have a personal life?
Are you in the news business? Or are you in the commentary business? I would think the latter. You write about trends and issues before others may see them, but that is part of the process of being in business/technology commentary.
I think your greatest advatage and best product, is not short little tweets, but the longer thought peices. The longer items are what demonstrates your knowledge, expertise, and forecasting. These traits are what give your opinion weight and make you valuable.
I agree with
To be honest, I think you have spread your personal brand too thin.
Though the Internet is filled with noise and a seemingly endless amount of info, in reality there is too little new, thoughtful content being created. Seth Godin does create a lot of original thoughtful content that spreads on its own. He does not need to try to become his marketing department by spending too much time on FF or Twitter.
You were featured in this very funny video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbH63Ali9U
In all seriousness I think you are both right. Spend just a little less time on twitter and a little more time on your blog and your video blogging.
You were featured in this very funny video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbH63Ali9U
Well you made part two anyway =p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwGzdbLweUI
In all seriousness I think you are both right. Spend just a little less time on twitter and a little more time on your blog and your video blogging.
(First of all, you should use RescueTime to truly understand what percentage of your work life you invest where! <-- Shameless plug!)
Twitter & Friendfeed are pretty much forums/chatrooms... They are great places for you to invest some time... 2-way conversation is good.
But I'd question what you've "gained". I don't think a lot of people there constitute a "new" audience for you. I don't follow you on either service (sorry, it's like drinking from a firehose!), but many/most of the things you write about that are relevant to me get to me somehow (retweeting, techmeme, what have you).
Further, I'd question the number of "followers". First, most of those people aren't reading what you say... Following does NOT equal consumption/engagement.
Pretend you'd invested ALL of that time in your blog and instead of losing 14% of your traffic, you gained. And pretend you did a bunch of A/B testing to get your RSS subscription up. And pretend you focused a bit on SEO. And pretend you created/emphasized an email subscription program and promoted it. How many more individuals would you have touched? My guess is way the hell more than the 20-30k represented on Twitter/FF (lots of overlap in the two userbases, I'd imagine).
Heck, how many unique visitors does the 14% by itself represent?
Each tweet that i find useful reinforces my intuition to look to Scoblizer, Fast Company.tv, and other places on the web where I know i can find you.
In other words, it builds your "brand" and will pay off in the long run.
It does not look like you have been wasting any time, rather participating (dare I say leading) in this growing new world of communication. Keep up whatever you're doing.
You should also factor the "quality" of your followers into your analysis. You may have 22K followers, but my guess is that a vast majority of those people followed you and Guy Kawasaki, etc., because someone told them to follow you when they joined Twitter. It's common wisdom (why, I have no idea) to start on Twitter by following the high volume tweeters.
Pete
Part of the issue is that we are becoming more of an ADHD society on a daily basis. I agree with the others that have stated you should try to balance both your blog and Twitter/FriendFeed. At the end of the day, you should consider a blog post summary (to share with those who don't hang on your up-to-the-nanosecond updates). Not a regurgitation, but what you learned or achieved throughout the day, and what you can use out of it for tomorrow and beyond.
I think THAT is what people are looking for.
Jamie
Friendfeed isn't Quantified, but Scobleizer and Fastcompany.tv are.
Seems to me there is a huge correlation between Robert Scoble driving traffic from his BLOG to Friendfeed, and their traffic as estimated by Quantcast.
http://www.quantcast.com/profile/traffic-compar...
Friendfeed really need to get Quantified.
At Friendfeed, my feeling is you are a big fish, ok a whale... in a very small pond. Sure you can help grow that pond and influence it, but it is very hard to grow it from within.
I tried that when in the games industry, growing first a CD publisher then a dev studio in Poland. It was a constant uphill battle.
Alternatively you are in the fortunate position to be able to grow from the outside. You can still be a part of the community. Send your likes at the same time as your old shared feed (no one mentioned the influence you played growing Google Reader)
You are such a huge participant in FF, but for some reason you don't have the FF comment widget here on the blog, there are a number of alternatives.
Just by participating with FF in that reduced capacity, but from here on the blog, you will have a lot more chance to grow it from without.
How much additional time you spend on FF/Twitter really depends on how you want to manage your time, but there are many aggregation methods that can be used to pre-filter.
Fastcompany.tv will benefit from Scobleizer being front row rather than FF - it doesn't matter how good the content is without people seeing it.
it is not an insult but .... you are just crazy. in a _bad_way. you could just write short (140ch) posts on the wordpress as well. you could just have different layout per post or category.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/art-direction/
I'd consider also what is the longer record you will have of what you did- if you have 8 years of blog posts, you have a searchable, linkable archive. Old tweets fall off the edge...
"A leader goes first."
Only you know whether or not what you're doing is right, and even then, you can be wrong. But that's not what makes a leader useful. What makes a leader useful is optimism—your belief in the potential you envision.
Your belief in the potential you see allows great things to happen and rallies people to a different future. Whether it's a "better" future is hard to say, but leaders are there to inspire people to make change, and "better" usually comes with change.
I'm wired for leadership, too, and I can see great potential in the direction you seem to be heading in. I see the possibility that you see, but perhaps others do not.
If you believe in what you're doing and you know it is right, keep going. Be prepared to fall flat on your face. That's the price you pay for forging a new trail. Sometimes you'll find a new land, filled with treasure. Sometimes you'll wonder off a (not-very-steep) cliff and end up battered and bruised.
That's the price a leader pays, and he pays it willingly, because he can clearly see that, if what he envisions _does_ happen, the world will be better in some way.
Nothing you do here can be detrimental in the long-term. If you fall off a cliff, you will learn from it and it will be educational. If you find treasure, then what you originally saw will be validated and you will be called a visionary.
When both paths lead to a win, the only question left is "what do I want to experience right now?"
Then go do it, and if needed, find a way to make it work.
-- Bruce
I think you are demonstrating that there are many sides to the proverbial coin. Neither is right or wrong, and you have quite accurately captured solid points and their counter-points.
I will say from the perspective of a social media novice, Twitter and FriendFeed have made you more accessible to "Joe Sixpack" ;-) Thanks for that at least.
I am curious and like learning things. I have been aware of your existence since you worked in Microsoft, and probably read a few dozen blog posts over the years. All memorable, but so what...
In 2008, I ended up following you, because @scobleizer kept invading my twitter stream (same goes for @guykawasaki), and I was missing half the conversation...so I followed, and this is what I learn (apart from the tech stuff):
* You want to get smarter
* You will talk to anyone to get smarter
* You kid likes building lego (qik)
* You like peaceful pictures
* You like meeting people before/during/after taking peaceful pictures
* You like to change you mind (anyone around for a drink/oops changed my mind)
* You take the safest option, based on public opinion
* You like to do it in a way that creates (mild) controversy.
So, I guess, yes, twitter and ff has allowed to get me to know the man behind the name, and I also subscribed to your blog, but I don't read your blog any more.
So what are you going to do for 2009? I expect that you will listen to the comments here, pull back for a few months, experience withdrawal symptoms, find a new toy to play with, and reinvent yourself again for 2009. If I were you, I would capitalize on the money/advertising/endorsement, cash in and get out. You're not getting any younger.
Oh, and you have encouraged me to be more forthright, honest and outspoken on my blog too.
All the best, Scobleizer..
Navdeep.
P.S. Then next time you are in the UK, I will give you a call.
P.P.S. Love your Twitter Idiot Land post
I can't spend all day looking at the Twitter-ticker, and if I don't, I miss things that I may care about. It seems that the more people I follow, the less value I'm able to get from Twitter (more noise), but the more people follow me, the greater my perceived social IQ. Am I the only one feeling this way?
140 char info- yawn. Streams of meaningless verbal hash- entertaining. I dig it. K?
But something about life requires a resounding richness tool for dispensation. Blogs do this. Blogs do this like nothing else.
All the big name mind spewage are as elusive digital farts when condensed onto a Twitter stream which is why they have to fing work so hard.
Twitter the easy crap. Blog us the grails.
But guys, you can follow me on twitter.
Thanks,
Trabajo