In the first part of this two-post series you read my ideas on why FriendFeed won’t go mainstream. In this part I get to answer why it will go mainstream.
First, something funny: Thomas Hawk just posted this to FriendFeed: ““Things in life that are addictive: digital photography, Flickr, Tommy’s cheeseburgers, those tangy sea salt and vinegar blue chips in the blue bag, coffee, Red Bull, and friendfeed.”” Of course that started a conversation.
So, why is FriendFeed going to go mainstream:
1. The team. Among the seven people who are currently working on FriendFeed is the guy who gave Google it’s “don’t be evil” tag and who wrote Gmail. Another guy on the team did Google Maps. Yet other people on the team did impressive things. This team will be unhappy with themselves if they just get me and Thomas Hawk and Louis Gray to use it. They are building something from the bottom up to be used by millions of people.
2. Them who owns a unique database will be able to build value. FriendFeed knows every item that’s been commented on and is building a database of interesting other stuff too.
3. By aggregating all social software sites together they are getting a database that’ll let them build a search service that’ll be very interesting (and already is to me — I already go there at least 20% of the time I want to find something or someone).
4. Their UI sucks and is brilliant at the same time. In the old post you read how it sucks. In this post look at what’s brilliant about it. First, it’s always fast. You gotta watch this video with Kevin Fox, interaction designer at FriendFeed, to get his philosophy behind building UIs. Think he doesn’t know crap about design? Go read his resume (PDF), he designed Gmail 1.0, Google Calendar 1.0, and Google Reader 2.0.
5. It is freaking fast and much more reliable than Twitter. Today I’ve been putting dozens of Tweets into Twitter and they show up in FriendFeed BEFORE I can refresh the page. It is amazingly fast at gathering new stuff from Twitter. I have not found any other service as reliably fast.
6. It’s very flexible. For instance, check out these links:
- Everyone who has shared an item on Google Reader.
- Everyone who has shared a song on Last.fm. or on iLike.
- Everyone who has Tweeted on Twitter (do a test and see how fast yours shows up there).
- Everyone who has shared a video on YouTube.
- Everyone who has written a blog post.
- Everyone who has put, or favorited, a photo on Flickr. On SmugMug. On Picasa.
- Everyone who has posted something on FriendFeed itself (link or a note).
- Everyone who has shared an event on Upcoming.
- Everyone who has bookmarked an item on Del.icio.us.
Those are just a sample of the things you can search on. Just visit the advanced search and select the servce you want
7. FriendFeed is a place where you can study people’s gestures and signals. Huh? Well, when I “like” something in FriendFeed it means I found it to be interesting and not just pure noise. When I comment on something it means I found it important enough to engage with. You can see items I’ve commented on, items I’ve liked, and both of them added together. You can also do that for everyone on FriendFeed.
8. If you want to watch everything your kids are doing, you’ve got to follow them around multiple services. That takes too much time. It’s far easier for your kids to just say “follow me on FriendFeed.”
9. The most interesting early adopters and smart people have already signed up so you can track them. Here’s just a small sample:
- Singer Samantha Murphy.
- Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
- Open source developer (did bleeding edge work at BBC, now doing projects at MySpace) Ben Metcalfe.
- Venture Capitalist Brad Feld (guy behind NewsGator and others).
- Google exec Bradley Horowitz (while at Yahoo he spearheaded purchase of Flickr, Delicious, and others).
- Dave Morin, head of Facebook’s application platform.
- Gary Vaynerchuk, owns a wine store in New Jersey that sells $50 million a year and does WineLibrary.tv
- Joi Ito, head of Creative Commons.
- Joshua Schacter, founder of Delicious.
I could keep going, but gotta run to catch a plane to New York.
So, which way are you heading? Is FriendFeed going to be an epic fail? Or the best thing since Facebook?
What did I miss on either side of this argument?
UPDATE: the conversation is already underway on FriendFeed here.
Scobleizer 
You so failed to mention that I’m there! Todd Jordan, http://friendfeed.com/tojosan.
Following my son along on FriendFeed never occurred to me and is such a great use. I’m following you and others to get the conglomerate of what you do online and what you like. It’s been helpful for finding stories that interest me in real time.
Yes, FriendFeed is fast. About the UI though, have you heard if there is another interface coming? One perhaps more interactive. Personally can’t wait to see what comes next since I’m enjoying using it already.
Thanks for the ideas and have a safe trip.
LikeLike
You so failed to mention that I’m there! Todd Jordan, http://friendfeed.com/tojosan.
Following my son along on FriendFeed never occurred to me and is such a great use. I’m following you and others to get the conglomerate of what you do online and what you like. It’s been helpful for finding stories that interest me in real time.
Yes, FriendFeed is fast. About the UI though, have you heard if there is another interface coming? One perhaps more interactive. Personally can’t wait to see what comes next since I’m enjoying using it already.
Thanks for the ideas and have a safe trip.
LikeLike
It is amazing how the possibly related links didn’t pick up the previous post.
You should have added a mention to all Engtech (and others) Firefox plugins that fix lots of issues (like I can see all your tweets)
They have scaled well
Lots of the people you listed have a Friendfeed account for the benefit of their audience, but what comments they have made are actually just Delicious descriptions similar to my Stumbleupon reviews.
LikeLike
It is amazing how the possibly related links didn’t pick up the previous post.
You should have added a mention to all Engtech (and others) Firefox plugins that fix lots of issues (like I can see all your tweets)
They have scaled well
Lots of the people you listed have a Friendfeed account for the benefit of their audience, but what comments they have made are actually just Delicious descriptions similar to my Stumbleupon reviews.
LikeLike
Andy Beard: you made a good point. I should be able to search for “top commenters” and “top likers.” I know that Louis Gray, for instance, is among those.
Todd Jordan: you should watch the Kevin Fox video. He talks about his philosophy of new UI changes there and gives some hints.
LikeLike
Andy Beard: you made a good point. I should be able to search for “top commenters” and “top likers.” I know that Louis Gray, for instance, is among those.
Todd Jordan: you should watch the Kevin Fox video. He talks about his philosophy of new UI changes there and gives some hints.
LikeLike
Sometimes, it appears that you don’t know if you are going or coming…
Is it day or is it night.
Were you always this confused, even in your youth.
All this has really taken a toll on you – hasn’t it? 😀
LikeLike
Sometimes, it appears that you don’t know if you are going or coming…
Is it day or is it night.
Were you always this confused, even in your youth.
All this has really taken a toll on you – hasn’t it? 😀
LikeLike
I’m on Friendfeed, and I’m enjoying, for once, being in on the start of something big. I envision one day looking back and saying, “See, that’s why my such-and-such was so successful, because people found out about it on FF, and I was there from the beginning.”
It’s not going to be an epic fail, I can tell you that. For the people who get it, it’s already a great tool.
LikeLike
SearchEngines: in my world there isn’t black and white. Just a lot of shades of gray. 🙂 I am jealous of those who see it as black and white, though.
LikeLike
I’m on Friendfeed, and I’m enjoying, for once, being in on the start of something big. I envision one day looking back and saying, “See, that’s why my such-and-such was so successful, because people found out about it on FF, and I was there from the beginning.”
It’s not going to be an epic fail, I can tell you that. For the people who get it, it’s already a great tool.
LikeLike
SearchEngines: in my world there isn’t black and white. Just a lot of shades of gray. 🙂 I am jealous of those who see it as black and white, though.
LikeLike
My take is that friendfeed works if you are active in at least 5 or so social networks, and people are interested enough to follow everything you are doing. that would work for you, Robert, because a lot of people follow you to get the latest buzz, ….
but for most of us who don’t have time to chat with friends much less follow everything they are doing, Friendfeed is overwhelming addition.
LikeLike
My take is that friendfeed works if you are active in at least 5 or so social networks, and people are interested enough to follow everything you are doing. that would work for you, Robert, because a lot of people follow you to get the latest buzz, ….
but for most of us who don’t have time to chat with friends much less follow everything they are doing, Friendfeed is overwhelming addition.
LikeLike
I find it interesting that at the moment FriendFeed is always seen as a means of finding out about blogs – like its in competition with Google Reader or something. As a geek early-adopter whose friends are all “normal” or at best mildly into the internet (and those who are aren’t so much into the blog scene) my own personal view is its like a public Facebook, ignoring the personal and contact stuff in favour of aggregating all my content from various social sites.
This means that my less techy friends don’t need to be on all these sites to see what I’m up to – they just need to check my FriendFeed. If this were combined with OAuth and Open Social to add privacy features interlinked with its aggregated sites and an open friends list we’d have the final component in a network of sites able to freely link each other in a true social network.
LikeLike
I find it interesting that at the moment FriendFeed is always seen as a means of finding out about blogs – like its in competition with Google Reader or something. As a geek early-adopter whose friends are all “normal” or at best mildly into the internet (and those who are aren’t so much into the blog scene) my own personal view is its like a public Facebook, ignoring the personal and contact stuff in favour of aggregating all my content from various social sites.
This means that my less techy friends don’t need to be on all these sites to see what I’m up to – they just need to check my FriendFeed. If this were combined with OAuth and Open Social to add privacy features interlinked with its aggregated sites and an open friends list we’d have the final component in a network of sites able to freely link each other in a true social network.
LikeLike
I have an easier time explaining twitter to people than friendfeed. I still haven’t gotten anyone to sign up for twitter yet though, since most of my friends aren’t into this stuff enough and just stick with myspace/facebook.
LikeLike
I have an easier time explaining twitter to people than friendfeed. I still haven’t gotten anyone to sign up for twitter yet though, since most of my friends aren’t into this stuff enough and just stick with myspace/facebook.
LikeLike
Steve: I deleted your comment because you told me to shut up. Sorry, you don’t get to say that on my blog. If it were on your blog you’d get to say that, but not here.
But, you must have missed that I did a post all about how FriendFeed will fail too and this blog is all about discovering new things and whether or not they are important. Talking too much about them is part of the game here.
>>And for the record, nobody cares about FF at this point except you and your followers and tech and web insiders.
Oh, and in just two months almost 10,000 people have added me.
LikeLike
Steve: I deleted your comment because you told me to shut up. Sorry, you don’t get to say that on my blog. If it were on your blog you’d get to say that, but not here.
But, you must have missed that I did a post all about how FriendFeed will fail too and this blog is all about discovering new things and whether or not they are important. Talking too much about them is part of the game here.
>>And for the record, nobody cares about FF at this point except you and your followers and tech and web insiders.
Oh, and in just two months almost 10,000 people have added me.
LikeLike
Whatever, Dr. S. I think my comment was quite valid and apt. I told you to ¨quiet¨ down on FF. It was starting to look shameless. You reply comment is a classic attempt by you to only present one side. I thought you were all for having a conversation? Your blog is literred with similar attempts to white wash your side, while making any opposition look weak.
And for the record in my comemnt, I was refering to that post, where you posted negative things about FF. I pointed it out, because your arguments were positioned to make those cons of frend feed look really weak.
Here is my original comment, without the offending shutup. Sir, I do make valid points. Edited, of course, for Scoble´s liking …
Scoble,
Please take it down a notch. It´s getting annoying. Your last post on why FF will not go mainstream was a serious strawman.
Example.
¨Well, so and so says this is why FF wont go mainstream, and then started this conversation (insert URL here)¨ and on and on.
Anybody who has a brain knows there is something in it for you if FF does go mainstream. Why in the heck else would you be so pathetic in your attempts to promote this thing. I´m not saying FF is bad, but if you are going to offer up the devil´s advocate to your own propositions, please do so fairly and in an unbiased manner. This article was totally leading and biased.
And for the record, nobody cares about FF at this point except you and your followers and tech and web insiders. Quit acting like it is bigger than it already it is. It may, in fact, one day be big and great, but your shameless promotion of it is only pissing off more and more people. Content and merit over human psychology, you ask? Hmm … well, yeah, if this thing does hit the mainstream and attract the normal people. They don´t care about you Scoble, or your annoying tactics, so they aren´t going to be annoyed by your constant FF rants, or your shifting, flip flopping positions. But you may just piss off enough people to make things a little bad for you down the line. Maybe not, but I can tell you, your current method is rather annoying and pathetic. If I were you, I would just lay low for a while. Let FF win on its merits, not hype. The more hype that comes out of your mouth, the less I like FF. That´s not fair — true. But that´s human. And everybody in this game is human.
Think about it, Scobie: Sometimes an indirect approach is much better than a loud, screaming in your face, scream louder than anyone approach.
For anybody wondering about Scoble: Just think about it. What does Scoble have at steak if FF does go mainstream? What would it mean to Scoble if this thing goes big? Hmmm …. more job opportunities? If Scoble loses this one, his credibility will go down a little bit. His value will go down. Companies might not be as willing to give Scoble some money in exchange for his expert ¨evangelical¨ services. Even worse, if FF wins and does hit the mainstream, Scoble can go around claiming ¨he told us so¨ and a lot more people might take him seriously.
Please scoble — do people a favor. Let FF speak for itself. Promotion is all right, but when it gets shameless, consistent, and over the top — people know it. Human beings have a great internal bullshit detector. That´s why we are annoyed when a Sales person approaches us like a lion at our trip to the car dealer. Much is to be gained from going into the shadows for, say, just little bit. I know it´s hard for you, Scoble, but I am here not to Troll, but to give you serious advice. Honestly, I´ve enjoyed your coke induced ramblings on FF, Twitter, and the latest and greatest Web stuff. You seriously remind me of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Love Liza and, even more, in Owning Mahoney in that you addiction is not induced by gasoline fums as in Love Liza or binge gambling as in Owing Mahanoey, but rather in constanstly spewing noise out of your oral cavity that was very enjoyable. However, the current stuff seems to be coming from another cavity, and we all know that is of lesser quality. If it doesn´t work out with FF, or if you are having a problem with finding work, Phillip Seymour Hoffmin might need a stand in from time to time. You do live in the Valley, don´t you? Not that far from Hollywood. Trust me, babe, you could do Hoffman.
But whatever, Dr. S, I´m not the expert like you. Take my advice and discard it as you please.
LikeLike
Whatever, Dr. S. I think my comment was quite valid and apt. I told you to ¨quiet¨ down on FF. It was starting to look shameless. You reply comment is a classic attempt by you to only present one side. I thought you were all for having a conversation? Your blog is literred with similar attempts to white wash your side, while making any opposition look weak.
And for the record in my comemnt, I was refering to that post, where you posted negative things about FF. I pointed it out, because your arguments were positioned to make those cons of frend feed look really weak.
Here is my original comment, without the offending shutup. Sir, I do make valid points. Edited, of course, for Scoble´s liking …
Scoble,
Please take it down a notch. It´s getting annoying. Your last post on why FF will not go mainstream was a serious strawman.
Example.
¨Well, so and so says this is why FF wont go mainstream, and then started this conversation (insert URL here)¨ and on and on.
Anybody who has a brain knows there is something in it for you if FF does go mainstream. Why in the heck else would you be so pathetic in your attempts to promote this thing. I´m not saying FF is bad, but if you are going to offer up the devil´s advocate to your own propositions, please do so fairly and in an unbiased manner. This article was totally leading and biased.
And for the record, nobody cares about FF at this point except you and your followers and tech and web insiders. Quit acting like it is bigger than it already it is. It may, in fact, one day be big and great, but your shameless promotion of it is only pissing off more and more people. Content and merit over human psychology, you ask? Hmm … well, yeah, if this thing does hit the mainstream and attract the normal people. They don´t care about you Scoble, or your annoying tactics, so they aren´t going to be annoyed by your constant FF rants, or your shifting, flip flopping positions. But you may just piss off enough people to make things a little bad for you down the line. Maybe not, but I can tell you, your current method is rather annoying and pathetic. If I were you, I would just lay low for a while. Let FF win on its merits, not hype. The more hype that comes out of your mouth, the less I like FF. That´s not fair — true. But that´s human. And everybody in this game is human.
Think about it, Scobie: Sometimes an indirect approach is much better than a loud, screaming in your face, scream louder than anyone approach.
For anybody wondering about Scoble: Just think about it. What does Scoble have at steak if FF does go mainstream? What would it mean to Scoble if this thing goes big? Hmmm …. more job opportunities? If Scoble loses this one, his credibility will go down a little bit. His value will go down. Companies might not be as willing to give Scoble some money in exchange for his expert ¨evangelical¨ services. Even worse, if FF wins and does hit the mainstream, Scoble can go around claiming ¨he told us so¨ and a lot more people might take him seriously.
Please scoble — do people a favor. Let FF speak for itself. Promotion is all right, but when it gets shameless, consistent, and over the top — people know it. Human beings have a great internal bullshit detector. That´s why we are annoyed when a Sales person approaches us like a lion at our trip to the car dealer. Much is to be gained from going into the shadows for, say, just little bit. I know it´s hard for you, Scoble, but I am here not to Troll, but to give you serious advice. Honestly, I´ve enjoyed your coke induced ramblings on FF, Twitter, and the latest and greatest Web stuff. You seriously remind me of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Love Liza and, even more, in Owning Mahoney in that you addiction is not induced by gasoline fums as in Love Liza or binge gambling as in Owing Mahanoey, but rather in constanstly spewing noise out of your oral cavity that was very enjoyable. However, the current stuff seems to be coming from another cavity, and we all know that is of lesser quality. If it doesn´t work out with FF, or if you are having a problem with finding work, Phillip Seymour Hoffmin might need a stand in from time to time. You do live in the Valley, don´t you? Not that far from Hollywood. Trust me, babe, you could do Hoffman.
But whatever, Dr. S, I´m not the expert like you. Take my advice and discard it as you please.
LikeLike
>Why in the heck else would you be so pathetic in your attempts to promote this thing.
Heheh, thanks for making me laugh. I promote things that I like. I’ve done this over and over for more than 20 years now.
LikeLike
>Why in the heck else would you be so pathetic in your attempts to promote this thing.
Heheh, thanks for making me laugh. I promote things that I like. I’ve done this over and over for more than 20 years now.
LikeLike
There is a high chance for Friendfeed to succeed because: …) they are working on a hot cause: content discovery through social dynamics and …) they have an excellent team. Here are 2 interesting videos which I think tells a lot about their culture:
http://omnisio.com/v/X0J-1T0djhG/paul-buchheit-at-startup-school-08
http://qik.com/video/73962
LikeLike
There’s a single thing that invalidates Friendfeed. Sturgeon’s law. Who has the time to wade through all the muck? A subscription to a few handpicked rss feeds is more than what most people have the time for.
Twitter is great because it hides all the noise the way AOL did it in Web 1.0 times. It’s a heatsink for otherwise smart people who somehow think that the world is interested in what they had for breakfast or where they are at the moment.
Most people don’t have the time to watch hour long videos when a paragraph with a picture would do just fine. Most people don’t even subscribe to rss feeds.
Facebook and Myspace are mainstream because they are about profiles – little tchotchkes that people line their virtual nests with, like some bird species, to attract mates and friends. Livejournal is about conversations – one of the last places on the web where you can expect a reply from somebody. When an average person has time to kill, they spend it on one of these three sites, but not on all of them. Only busy self-promoters and professionals who deal with social meadia (whatever that is) have accounts in multiple places.
There’s always enough time for a good rant though.
Friendfeed is about as far from mainstream as it gets. It’s chocolate rain. It’ll go belly up soon enough.
LikeLike
There is a high chance for Friendfeed to succeed because: …) they are working on a hot cause: content discovery through social dynamics and …) they have an excellent team. Here are 2 interesting videos which I think tells a lot about their culture:
http://omnisio.com/v/X0J-1T0djhG/paul-buchheit-at-startup-school-08
http://qik.com/video/73962
LikeLike
There’s a single thing that invalidates Friendfeed. Sturgeon’s law. Who has the time to wade through all the muck? A subscription to a few handpicked rss feeds is more than what most people have the time for.
Twitter is great because it hides all the noise the way AOL did it in Web 1.0 times. It’s a heatsink for otherwise smart people who somehow think that the world is interested in what they had for breakfast or where they are at the moment.
Most people don’t have the time to watch hour long videos when a paragraph with a picture would do just fine. Most people don’t even subscribe to rss feeds.
Facebook and Myspace are mainstream because they are about profiles – little tchotchkes that people line their virtual nests with, like some bird species, to attract mates and friends. Livejournal is about conversations – one of the last places on the web where you can expect a reply from somebody. When an average person has time to kill, they spend it on one of these three sites, but not on all of them. Only busy self-promoters and professionals who deal with social meadia (whatever that is) have accounts in multiple places.
There’s always enough time for a good rant though.
Friendfeed is about as far from mainstream as it gets. It’s chocolate rain. It’ll go belly up soon enough.
LikeLike
FriendFeed must update faster for people on the left coast, because I can wait up to 30 minutes sometimes before I see Flickr updates or some other contributions.
LikeLike
FriendFeed must update faster for people on the left coast, because I can wait up to 30 minutes sometimes before I see Flickr updates or some other contributions.
LikeLike
I don’t think you answered your own question. You talk about why FriendFeed has value, and why people SHOULD pay attention, but you’re not addressing HOW they will even find something such as FF. For the most part, the mainstream masses don’t care about any of those uses you mentioned above (as you mention in Part 1), nor would they ever just stumble on it and start using it.
The only way FF will go mainstream is if it becomes as simple to use as Google, or as resourceful as Craigslist. At BarcampSD, I co-lead a session on whether or not Twitter is ready for the mainstream, and even though I tend to believe that Twitter will go mainstream, the group’s consensus was that it would take mainstream media attention to garner a mainstream audience. FF has an added layer of complexity to Twitter that everyday folks just don’t need, and I highly doubt CBS will ever mention FF in a broadcast (but I could be wrong).
Also, I can immediately show and explain the power of Twitter to people who have never heard of it before – it took me awhile, but I’ve found a method that works. FF, as a service, makes it impossible for me to evangelize it’s app because I not only have to explain the why and the how, I have to explain what all those other web apps (that plug-in to FF) are for…I don’t have that much time on my hands, and if I’m not going to explain it to them, they’re certainly not going to be able figure it out on their own (you also made this point in Part 1).
LikeLike
I don’t think you answered your own question. You talk about why FriendFeed has value, and why people SHOULD pay attention, but you’re not addressing HOW they will even find something such as FF. For the most part, the mainstream masses don’t care about any of those uses you mentioned above (as you mention in Part 1), nor would they ever just stumble on it and start using it.
The only way FF will go mainstream is if it becomes as simple to use as Google, or as resourceful as Craigslist. At BarcampSD, I co-lead a session on whether or not Twitter is ready for the mainstream, and even though I tend to believe that Twitter will go mainstream, the group’s consensus was that it would take mainstream media attention to garner a mainstream audience. FF has an added layer of complexity to Twitter that everyday folks just don’t need, and I highly doubt CBS will ever mention FF in a broadcast (but I could be wrong).
Also, I can immediately show and explain the power of Twitter to people who have never heard of it before – it took me awhile, but I’ve found a method that works. FF, as a service, makes it impossible for me to evangelize it’s app because I not only have to explain the why and the how, I have to explain what all those other web apps (that plug-in to FF) are for…I don’t have that much time on my hands, and if I’m not going to explain it to them, they’re certainly not going to be able figure it out on their own (you also made this point in Part 1).
LikeLike
1. The team? So? THe entire dot.com crash was made up of teams of “brilliant people”, and more often than not, the arrogant self-serving egos, crash down.
2. A database of what? Random social services spew? That loses it’s value seconds after broadcast.
3. aggregating everything together? Myabe 1% of the population finds value in that big brotherish approach, They key, as in video editing and cooking, lies in what to keep, what to leave out and how to make it all sing. Dumping everything into one big casserole makes for the worst meal (or movie) in history.
4. A pretty UI is a pretty UI. And people flock to ugly, if enough perceived value, the Mayspace phenom is all the evidence I need to cite. UI is just the gift wrapping, a horrible database with a pretty UI, is still a horrible database. Grpahic artists and HTMLjockeys always like to paint up the pigs with UI’s, not saying good UIs are bad things, heck KDE4 is killer, but the UI is only one element of the whole and it’s really never much of a mainstream concern.
5. Everything and anything be much more reliable than Twitter, that’s hardly an argument. And you wonder why the Enterprise isn’t flocking to crashy unreliable Web 2.0 wood rot.
6. Flexible? You seriously are trapped in edge case world if you think anyone in the mainstream is going to jump through those “flexible’
LikeLike
1. The team? So? THe entire dot.com crash was made up of teams of “brilliant people”, and more often than not, the arrogant self-serving egos, crash down.
2. A database of what? Random social services spew? That loses it’s value seconds after broadcast.
3. aggregating everything together? Myabe 1% of the population finds value in that big brotherish approach, They key, as in video editing and cooking, lies in what to keep, what to leave out and how to make it all sing. Dumping everything into one big casserole makes for the worst meal (or movie) in history.
4. A pretty UI is a pretty UI. And people flock to ugly, if enough perceived value, the Mayspace phenom is all the evidence I need to cite. UI is just the gift wrapping, a horrible database with a pretty UI, is still a horrible database. Grpahic artists and HTMLjockeys always like to paint up the pigs with UI’s, not saying good UIs are bad things, heck KDE4 is killer, but the UI is only one element of the whole and it’s really never much of a mainstream concern.
5. Everything and anything be much more reliable than Twitter, that’s hardly an argument. And you wonder why the Enterprise isn’t flocking to crashy unreliable Web 2.0 wood rot.
6. Flexible? You seriously are trapped in edge case world if you think anyone in the mainstream is going to jump through those “flexible’
LikeLike
contd.
jump-loops to craft custom searches of stuff most won’t even care about.
7. Gestures and signals? Stop creating new buzzwords, it’s tiring. It’s just random web fluff tracking, a history cache for social networking rot. Stop wetting your pants.
8. Kids get bored easy and are trendy as all out, peer pressure and all, you’d have to fine-tune that ‘flexible’ searching constantly.
9. Most interesting early adopters and smart people are already in the club. You, who aren’t, are obviously suffering from a brain defect, you moron, you just don’t get it. All the cool people are sit at THIS table, nah nah nah. What? Are you like 15 years old? I doubt most people want to relive High School popularity hell.
LikeLike
contd.
jump-loops to craft custom searches of stuff most won’t even care about.
7. Gestures and signals? Stop creating new buzzwords, it’s tiring. It’s just random web fluff tracking, a history cache for social networking rot. Stop wetting your pants.
8. Kids get bored easy and are trendy as all out, peer pressure and all, you’d have to fine-tune that ‘flexible’ searching constantly.
9. Most interesting early adopters and smart people are already in the club. You, who aren’t, are obviously suffering from a brain defect, you moron, you just don’t get it. All the cool people are sit at THIS table, nah nah nah. What? Are you like 15 years old? I doubt most people want to relive High School popularity hell.
LikeLike
PSS – gawd, blog comments don’t work well via Mobile Phone either, not just FakeFriendFeed.
LikeLike
PSS – gawd, blog comments don’t work well via Mobile Phone either, not just FakeFriendFeed.
LikeLike
@Christopher Coulter, couldn’t agree with you more. Who cares about who made the product, if the product isn’t useful to the person. Aggregating social networks that people don’t use doesn’t matter.
LikeLike
@Christopher Coulter, couldn’t agree with you more. Who cares about who made the product, if the product isn’t useful to the person. Aggregating social networks that people don’t use doesn’t matter.
LikeLike
Robert,I look at your FriendFeed’s stream and see Twitter,Twitter,Twitter.
It’s key,not FriendFeed.
LikeLike
Robert,I look at your FriendFeed’s stream and see Twitter,Twitter,Twitter.
It’s key,not FriendFeed.
LikeLike
The “freaking fast” part of item 5 is not a universal truth (although the “much more reliable than Twitter” certainly is). Perhaps FriendFeed grabs Twitter posts quickly, but there is sometimes a lag of a few minutes on my Blogger blog posts, a longer lag on StumbleUpon posts and Google Reader shared items, and sometimes I’ve encountered a lag of hours on loved YouTube videos. I’m not enough of a techie to know whether the fault is at FriendFeed’s end or at the supplying service’s end. Can anyone elaborate?
LikeLike
The “freaking fast” part of item 5 is not a universal truth (although the “much more reliable than Twitter” certainly is). Perhaps FriendFeed grabs Twitter posts quickly, but there is sometimes a lag of a few minutes on my Blogger blog posts, a longer lag on StumbleUpon posts and Google Reader shared items, and sometimes I’ve encountered a lag of hours on loved YouTube videos. I’m not enough of a techie to know whether the fault is at FriendFeed’s end or at the supplying service’s end. Can anyone elaborate?
LikeLike
Pretty much the entire feature set of FriendFeed was available in Jaiku two years ago, plus more.
Yet you dismissed it, saying that you prefer the simplicity of Twitter over a feed aggregator.
What changed?
LikeLike
Pretty much the entire feature set of FriendFeed was available in Jaiku two years ago, plus more.
Yet you dismissed it, saying that you prefer the simplicity of Twitter over a feed aggregator.
What changed?
LikeLike
robert,
i’ve had all my activity on FF since the very start and I’ve tried to use it to follow other people but it doesn’t work for me for the follow part. I realize that it works well for others and I am really rooting for FF to succeed. I’ve noticed that their traffic was down in April and I think that may be because it’s just too much to wade through for most people. I don’t use a feed reader either as hard as I’ve tried.
One thing I’d really like them to do for me, the producer of content in their system, is give me many options other than visiting FF to get the interactions (favoriting and commenting) that goes on in their system.
Fred
LikeLike
robert,
i’ve had all my activity on FF since the very start and I’ve tried to use it to follow other people but it doesn’t work for me for the follow part. I realize that it works well for others and I am really rooting for FF to succeed. I’ve noticed that their traffic was down in April and I think that may be because it’s just too much to wade through for most people. I don’t use a feed reader either as hard as I’ve tried.
One thing I’d really like them to do for me, the producer of content in their system, is give me many options other than visiting FF to get the interactions (favoriting and commenting) that goes on in their system.
Fred
LikeLike
Your logic points to the clash of intents from both the media and technology side which is a battle for control. Never before has “the people” had the power of communications and access but the power is a threat to those who control it for economic gain.
We are iwitnessing an epic time of historical proportion and the momentum of the people and the unity of purpose will be the force to respond to the opposing attemtps to control
LikeLike
Your logic points to the clash of intents from both the media and technology side which is a battle for control. Never before has “the people” had the power of communications and access but the power is a threat to those who control it for economic gain.
We are iwitnessing an epic time of historical proportion and the momentum of the people and the unity of purpose will be the force to respond to the opposing attemtps to control
LikeLike
I want to be Robert Scoble. He gets it!
Bret Taylor is smarter than Mark Zuckerberg, and Zuckerberg is a f—— genius.
Paul B. is the real deal also (I don’t know the others in Friendfeed).
With the social network space evolving and morphing so rapidly (every major company playing continual catch up with every other) I agree with Robert’s implication that the best teams will win.
Training at Google for the Friendfeed founders — and what these individuals produced there — an extremely good harbinger.
I also like Robert’s mention about the database as a competitive advantage. Threaded conversations do not only provide value to users, which they definately do. They also become a data mining bonanza.
Friendfeed potentially has the best minable inforation (Facebook not bad either) but they have to show they can leverage it in a way that is simple, intuitive and useful for users. Robert indicates (I think) that they are working to do this.
Robert does this also himself by detailing clearly above the compelling arguments (and data links to support and illustrate) of why Friendfeed is – already! – ahead of the game.
The fact that some influential early adopters don’t even realize this fact yet, however, illustrates also how far Friendfeed also has to go. They haven’t even been sold as a better option (Twitter still ahead in that realm) with the majority of key early adopters. But they are a company moving in that direction pretty quickly.
LikeLike
I want to be Robert Scoble. He gets it!
Bret Taylor is smarter than Mark Zuckerberg, and Zuckerberg is a f—— genius.
Paul B. is the real deal also (I don’t know the others in Friendfeed).
With the social network space evolving and morphing so rapidly (every major company playing continual catch up with every other) I agree with Robert’s implication that the best teams will win.
Training at Google for the Friendfeed founders — and what these individuals produced there — an extremely good harbinger.
I also like Robert’s mention about the database as a competitive advantage. Threaded conversations do not only provide value to users, which they definately do. They also become a data mining bonanza.
Friendfeed potentially has the best minable inforation (Facebook not bad either) but they have to show they can leverage it in a way that is simple, intuitive and useful for users. Robert indicates (I think) that they are working to do this.
Robert does this also himself by detailing clearly above the compelling arguments (and data links to support and illustrate) of why Friendfeed is – already! – ahead of the game.
The fact that some influential early adopters don’t even realize this fact yet, however, illustrates also how far Friendfeed also has to go. They haven’t even been sold as a better option (Twitter still ahead in that realm) with the majority of key early adopters. But they are a company moving in that direction pretty quickly.
LikeLike
Why Friendfeed over Pulse?
LikeLike
Why Friendfeed over Pulse?
LikeLike
As Riley says in his post, it’s inevitable that, following the Google model (natch), the content and the conversation that goes with it will move to the shiny new platform of the moment. The question, for bloggers anyway, is how much value they will get from this — loss of conversation control vs. increased exposure to their ideas. How do you maintain your online “brand” in a fractured media market? Time will tell.
LikeLike
As Riley says in his post, it’s inevitable that, following the Google model (natch), the content and the conversation that goes with it will move to the shiny new platform of the moment. The question, for bloggers anyway, is how much value they will get from this — loss of conversation control vs. increased exposure to their ideas. How do you maintain your online “brand” in a fractured media market? Time will tell.
LikeLike
I’m not nearly as optimistic about FriendFeed’s future… too many variables.
LikeLike
I’m not nearly as optimistic about FriendFeed’s future… too many variables.
LikeLike
Robert: keep on pushing what “you like.” It helps the rest of us find out about cool tech! Great job!!
LikeLike
Robert: keep on pushing what “you like.” It helps the rest of us find out about cool tech! Great job!!
LikeLike
@Jamie: “Pretty much the entire feature set of FriendFeed was available in Jaiku two years ago, plus more.”
I tried signing up to Jaiku recently. The process failed with a system error before I had even finished. Two years of development for that?
LikeLike
@Jamie: “Pretty much the entire feature set of FriendFeed was available in Jaiku two years ago, plus more.”
I tried signing up to Jaiku recently. The process failed with a system error before I had even finished. Two years of development for that?
LikeLike
@Earle
You can’t really compare the situation two years ago with what is happening now with the site. Since being bought by Google, Jaiku is effectively dead – so it is no wonder why you are having problems.
LikeLike
@Earle
You can’t really compare the situation two years ago with what is happening now with the site. Since being bought by Google, Jaiku is effectively dead – so it is no wonder why you are having problems.
LikeLike
Good day! Nice site you have. Can I take picture from? Off cause with reference to your site! See you.
LikeLike
Good day! Nice site you have. Can I take picture from? Off cause with reference to your site! See you.
LikeLike
Very interesting,Thank's, Great Post !
LikeLike
Very interesting,Thank's, Great Post !
LikeLike