Robert Scoble's 10 Favorite Tech Experts on FriendFeed

As many of you know, I was an early adopter of FriendFeed and have since become something of an addict. Part of the reason is that FriendFeed aggregates all of the content that I create across various social media sites – and allows others to comment on it. And FriendFeed recently added a RealTime display, which shows you other people's items as soon as they add them to their page. No refresh necessary – kind of like the “News Feed” on Facebook, but instantaneous. In my mind, this is where Web 2.0 is going: the Internet on its way to becoming a chat room!

So, in honor of FriendFeed's innovative new feature, I have honed a list of the top tech voices on FriendFeed you should add to your RSS feeds and Favorites List. Of the 3,500 people I follow on FriendFeed, these are the ten experts I communicate with every single day. Journalists, bloggers, entrepreneurs, developers, and marketers, these Friends of Scoble are loud – and credible – voices on FriendFeed and the Web at large. Each one has been handpicked for their unique perspective -- and their elephant-sized brain.

Or think about it this way: If you just followed these ten people it would be like a magazine edited by the tech industry's top thinkers.

1) Michael Arrington: As founder of TechCrunch, Mike is a fairly recognizable name on the Internet; in fact, Time magazine went so far as to he say that he's one of “the most influential people in the world.” Clearly a good person to have on your Friend List! Among his notable achievements: graduated from Stanford Law, practiced corporate lawyer, founded TechCrunch (a popular blog with 967,000 current webfeed subscribers). He's also a legendary party host and a serial entrepreneur of the highest degree, co-founding Achex, Zip.ca, Pool.com, and Edgeio. Oh, and he's also the COO of Razorgator.

Michael Arrington - FriendFeed
Michael Arrington's Website

2) Louis Gray: He's the guy I learned about FriendFeed first from. Louis is the Director of Corporate Marketing at BlueArc, a Silicon Valley technology company, and an advisor at ReadBurner, an aggregator of the most frequently shared content from “next generation” services. Prior to BlueArc, where Louis has worked since 2001, he was the Web Marketing Manager for 3Cube, a communications application service provider sold to Oracle in 2001.

Louis Gray - FriendFeed
Louis Gray's Website

3) Duncan Riley: Duncan is an Australian writer, developer, speaker and blogging evangelist. He has launched several blogging sites, including b5media, The Blog Herald, Weblog Empire, and most recently, The Inquisitr (of which he is also CEO). He's a guy I argue with a lot, but he's always looking for an interesting tech story.

Duncan Riley - FriendFeed
Duncan Riley's Website

4) Thomas Hawk: Thomas is an avid photographer and social media evangelist and blogger living in the San Francisco Bay area. Professionally, he works as an investment advisor, has had his photography published in numerous sites including the BBC, and currently is CEO and Chief Evangelist for Zooomr, a photo-sharing website.

Thomas Hawk - FriendFeed
Thomas Hawk's Website

5) Dave Winer: I got into blogging mostly because of Dave, author of ScriptingNews.com, and he was the first blogger I followed back in the late 1990s. He is generally credited as a pioneer of the development of RSS, now a world-wide phenomenon; and was the first to implement the feed "enclosure" feature, one of several necessary ingredients for podcasting. Dave is also the author of Scripting News, one of the oldest blogs on the Internet, established way back in ‘97. He's also the founder of the software companies Living Videotext and Userland Software, a former contributing editor for the website HotWired, and a former research fellow at Harvard Law School.

Dave Winer - FriendFeed
Dave Winer's Website

6) Steve Rubel: When I think of a PR guy who understands the social media world I think of Steve. He is currently Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, where he helps clients identify emerging digital platforms that can be integrated into marketing programs. He also authors a popular digital-themed blog called Micro Persuasion and has a bi-weekly column in AdAge Digital.