Dave Winer talks about why FriendFeed hasn’t gotten super popular yet. He thinks there’s space for a new service between Twitter and FriendFeed. Everyone knows I’m FriendFeed’s #1 customer, but I’ve been studying the two services for a while and have found 10 reasons why FriendFeed isn’t right for you.
1. Twitter has one way to get content into the system. You see a box. You type. You push a button that says “update.” Compare this to FriendFeed. Let’s try to count the ways you can get content into the system.
- a. the standard way on the top of the page, but there you have to choose whether you are putting in a message, a link, a photo.
- b. Import your site. Or your Flickr. Or your YouTube. Or your Facebook. Or your Twitter stream. Or your blog. Or your Disqus comments. Or your Upcoming.org stream. Etc. Etc. There are 59 services that can be brought into FriendFeed. Very few services do the same for Twitter.
- c. You can “Like” an item. Here’s all my likes. There’s 11,500 of them so far, which shows another problem: too much content to go through on FF. Twitter actually has a similar feature, called Favorites, but no one actually uses that.
- d. You can “Comment” on an item. Here’s my comments. More than 6,000 of them. You really don’t want that kind of distraction. You might have to participate and that wouldn’t be good.
- e. Then there’s the FriendFeed toolbar bookmarklet.
- I’m probably missing five other ways you can get content into FriendFeed. Like emailing in items.
2. Twitter has one display of messages that are 140 characters long. You can’t handle the responsibility of longer messages. Plus FriendFeed’s messages include photos. YouTube videos. Play inline audio links. And more. You can’t handle those distractions. Twitter is for you.
3. FriendFeed has a search engine that’s just like Twitter’s search engine. Except you can use that search engine to only search certain data types. On Twitter you only have one datatype. So much less confusing.
4. On Twitter you follow people by your friends telling you their Twitter address. Mine is http://www.twitter.com/scobleizer or you will see someone replying to me by using @scobleizer and you’ll click that link and then click “follow.” FriendFeed has a whole list of recommended users that you’ll need to consider when first signing up for the service. The recommendations, if you’ve followed me, will include such people like Mike Arrington, Charlene Li, Corvida, Om Malik, Steve Gillmor, Jason Calacanis, David Sifry, and many other people. Now you’ll need to consider how those people got recommended to you and that might hurt your brain. On Twitter it just shows you who I’m following on the right side of the page — members who’ve been on longer are on top of that list.
5. Your friends are on Twitter, they don’t yet know what FriendFeed is. So, FriendFeed is totally lame. Of course, if you aren’t in the tech industry, or a US President Elect (er, his staff), or an NBC Camera Man, a well-known wine seller, a supply-chain manager in China, or a well-known newsman on CNN, you probably are actually on Facebook, but that’s a whole nother blog post.
6. FriendFeed doesn’t have Direct Messaging. Twitter does. Twitter FTW!
7. FriendFeed has rooms. Twitter doesn’t. Rooms seem a lot like old-school mailing lists. Makes your head hurt, so they can’t be a good thing.
8. If you don’t want to see someone on Twitter anymore, you unfollow them. If you don’t want them to see you either, you block them. But that’s about it. FriendFeed does both of those but then also lets you hide posts. Did you know you can hide just someone’s Flickr photos? Or her Tweets? Or both? Too confusing. You can’t handle that, which is why Twitter is for you. Any service that has a tutorial on how to use a feature is just not for you.
9. FriendFeed has this Real Time feature. Here’s my RealTime Feed which shows 5,000 people being aggregated together. Twitter doesn’t do that, although Twitter search gets close. You just can’t handle that kind of distraction. Did you know you can put that real time stream on the sidebar on Firefox? You really can’t handle that. It’ll distract you to no end.
10. Twitter has more apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl, a ton of iPhone apps, etc. FriendFeed doesn’t have nearly as many third-party apps, so it can’t be as useful.
I could keep going, but that’s why there are millions of people on Twitter and hundreds of thousands of people on FriendFeed.
Let’s meet in six more months and see if anything has changed. Until then, FriendFeed is just not for you. Sorry.
Scobleizer 
This is some kind of reverse psychology trick you’re playing. And it’ll work, congrats on evangelizing it. I’ve registered, but seriously? It really is too complicated for me. =P I’ll learn it when I really have to which should be sometime in 2009
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Think a lot of it is the simplicity of twitter. It’s just easy to set up and add users and follow people. Friendfeed might not be that much more work, but it looks like it.
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#9, “Here’s mine” should be a link, no?
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This is some kind of reverse psychology trick you’re playing. And it’ll work, congrats on evangelizing it. I’ve registered, but seriously? It really is too complicated for me. =P I’ll learn it when I really have to which should be sometime in 2009
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Think a lot of it is the simplicity of twitter. It’s just easy to set up and add users and follow people. Friendfeed might not be that much more work, but it looks like it.
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#9, “Here’s mine” should be a link, no?
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well, nevermind.
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well, nevermind.
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Robert, awesome post, first off. I’ll never understand why someone on FriendFeed wouldn’t use Twitter and vice versa, especially if that person is a blogger, or of that sort.
More importantly, I think it should be pointed out that Twitter is a medium for “now sharing”, no matter where you are. Sure the iPhone and other mobile data devices can access FriendFeed 24/7 if they’re glued to their user base, but the real difference with Twitter and FriendFeed is the same reason the updates are limited to 140 characters. SMS input.
Anyone who isn’t willing to understand both of these services and use them accordingly are only selling themselves short. Hell, I even use Tumblr for god’s sake, and lord knows that’s just to fill in the gaps between [Twitter] > [FriendFeed] > [Tumblr] > [Blog] – it’s almost like micromanaging your sharing, but for me it works – at the very least, pick 3 of those, just make sure your choice includes Twitter & FriendFeed.
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Robert, awesome post, first off. I’ll never understand why someone on FriendFeed wouldn’t use Twitter and vice versa, especially if that person is a blogger, or of that sort.
More importantly, I think it should be pointed out that Twitter is a medium for “now sharing”, no matter where you are. Sure the iPhone and other mobile data devices can access FriendFeed 24/7 if they’re glued to their user base, but the real difference with Twitter and FriendFeed is the same reason the updates are limited to 140 characters. SMS input.
Anyone who isn’t willing to understand both of these services and use them accordingly are only selling themselves short. Hell, I even use Tumblr for god’s sake, and lord knows that’s just to fill in the gaps between [Twitter] > [FriendFeed] > [Tumblr] > [Blog] – it’s almost like micromanaging your sharing, but for me it works – at the very least, pick 3 of those, just make sure your choice includes Twitter & FriendFeed.
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Interresting aproach on getting them (FF) som attention.
Of course FF will grow, especielly if they tweak it some more.
Go FF, and go Twitter.
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Interresting aproach on getting them (FF) som attention.
Of course FF will grow, especielly if they tweak it some more.
Go FF, and go Twitter.
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Just discovering twitter – and losing too much time already. You prevent me from migrating to friendfeed. Thanks 🙂
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Just discovering twitter – and losing too much time already. You prevent me from migrating to friendfeed. Thanks 🙂
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A perfectly laid out list of exactly why I don’t have a FriendFeed account. Thank you.
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A perfectly laid out list of exactly why I don’t have a FriendFeed account. Thank you.
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Hmm I still don’t know why I am using Friendfeed anyway, it is so so distracting and crammed-packed. No, now seriously I love the way you demonstrate the opposite in this article. In fact I would like to use friendfeed much more but sometimes one goes with the flow and not with the right stuff. It is rather interesting. I think they are both good at what they do but “faster and more simple” prevails.
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Hmm I still don’t know why I am using Friendfeed anyway, it is so so distracting and crammed-packed. No, now seriously I love the way you demonstrate the opposite in this article. In fact I would like to use friendfeed much more but sometimes one goes with the flow and not with the right stuff. It is rather interesting. I think they are both good at what they do but “faster and more simple” prevails.
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Why FriendFeed isn’t for you and Twitter is? Because they solve totally different problems. They’re not chasing the same market. Friendfeed and Facebook are chasing the same market, abet in different ways. Twitter isn’t…?
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Why FriendFeed isn’t for you and Twitter is? Because they solve totally different problems. They’re not chasing the same market. Friendfeed and Facebook are chasing the same market, abet in different ways. Twitter isn’t…?
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imo, both are great and great for two kinds of people. One likes vanilla, the other chocolate.
We support both 😉
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imo, both are great and great for two kinds of people. One likes vanilla, the other chocolate.
We support both 😉
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Well I do think these two tools are just complementary, I mean twitter is an instant interaction good for being updated whereas FriendFeed is more about getting/sharing as much info as possible. Both of them are useful, but i find twitter a lot more addictive.
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Well I do think these two tools are just complementary, I mean twitter is an instant interaction good for being updated whereas FriendFeed is more about getting/sharing as much info as possible. Both of them are useful, but i find twitter a lot more addictive.
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Using FriendFeed is like trying to drink from a firehose.
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Using FriendFeed is like trying to drink from a firehose.
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Good post summing up the differences, but I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not. Probably because I’m a Brit and we do irony differently over here 🙂
I understand you’re a fan of FriendFeed – do you genuinely believe that it won’t catch on, or are you saying that people need to get better at filtering all the noise on FriendFeed, and that this is the way forward? Apologies for missing the subtleties of your argument. 🙂
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Good post summing up the differences, but I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not. Probably because I’m a Brit and we do irony differently over here 🙂
I understand you’re a fan of FriendFeed – do you genuinely believe that it won’t catch on, or are you saying that people need to get better at filtering all the noise on FriendFeed, and that this is the way forward? Apologies for missing the subtleties of your argument. 🙂
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ttucker23: I am investing more time than ever in both services. I think FriendFeed will be a lot more important to all of you next year. But it needs only a few things to make it more useful to a wide range of people.
Imagine if you could talk to its database like this:
“show me all youtube videos that include the word “Obama” and that have two or more likes AND two or more comments and that were made between November 1, 2008 and November 7, 2008.”
If you get that kind of ability to query the database in live time, you’ll see something very magical, which is why I don’t mind that I spent more than 1,000 hours on FriendFeed this year.
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ttucker23: I am investing more time than ever in both services. I think FriendFeed will be a lot more important to all of you next year. But it needs only a few things to make it more useful to a wide range of people.
Imagine if you could talk to its database like this:
“show me all youtube videos that include the word “Obama” and that have two or more likes AND two or more comments and that were made between November 1, 2008 and November 7, 2008.”
If you get that kind of ability to query the database in live time, you’ll see something very magical, which is why I don’t mind that I spent more than 1,000 hours on FriendFeed this year.
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I like your way to demonstrate that, I know you are promoting friendfeed while praising twitter: ) ‘Distraction’ has set the fate for friendfeed, ff can not make money from “attention economy” cuz attention is so much distracted in friendfeed services. But twitter can–you can’t imagine how much focused when you are reading tweets from the person you are concerned. Maybe friendfeed can make money from propaganda, I am not sure : )
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I like your way to demonstrate that, I know you are promoting friendfeed while praising twitter: ) ‘Distraction’ has set the fate for friendfeed, ff can not make money from “attention economy” cuz attention is so much distracted in friendfeed services. But twitter can–you can’t imagine how much focused when you are reading tweets from the person you are concerned. Maybe friendfeed can make money from propaganda, I am not sure : )
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Yup twitter is my weapon of choice. I also find a distinct ‘lack’ of conversation over at friendfeed. I don’t hate friendfeed at all, it’s just I really love twitter (a love which faded after the May downtimes, but is totally back).
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Yup twitter is my weapon of choice. I also find a distinct ‘lack’ of conversation over at friendfeed. I don’t hate friendfeed at all, it’s just I really love twitter (a love which faded after the May downtimes, but is totally back).
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I love this list. I had been playing with friendfeed and was not terribly impressed with any of it compared to twitter. I think basically alot of what you are saying is it is too hard and takes up alot of time. Not that it has no value, there is just more work to get that value.
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I love this list. I had been playing with friendfeed and was not terribly impressed with any of it compared to twitter. I think basically alot of what you are saying is it is too hard and takes up alot of time. Not that it has no value, there is just more work to get that value.
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Doesn’t matter what tool you’re using – lifestreaming itself is a distraction.
Tink *~*~*
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Doesn’t matter what tool you’re using – lifestreaming itself is a distraction.
Tink *~*~*
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I just spent a little time watching your real-time feed. Clearly, I cannot follow anywhere near as many people as you do. I get lost in the flood of data.
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I just spent a little time watching your real-time feed. Clearly, I cannot follow anywhere near as many people as you do. I get lost in the flood of data.
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Hey Scoble, thanks for this information.
what percentage of friendfeed.com do you own? Or are you just on the payroll? I Cannot find the info on ff nor on your sites but think I read that you are a shareholder somewhere? Would be nice if you could clarify. I like your posts a lot but early this morning had to stopp following you on twitter as I did not see any other friends updates anymore since you post 24/7 on Twitter. I rather subscribe to scobleizer.com Regards
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Hey Scoble, thanks for this information.
what percentage of friendfeed.com do you own? Or are you just on the payroll? I Cannot find the info on ff nor on your sites but think I read that you are a shareholder somewhere? Would be nice if you could clarify. I like your posts a lot but early this morning had to stopp following you on twitter as I did not see any other friends updates anymore since you post 24/7 on Twitter. I rather subscribe to scobleizer.com Regards
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Twitter is my second favorite, but my heart belongs to FriendFeed.
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Twitter is my second favorite, but my heart belongs to FriendFeed.
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Robert: Great post again, anyways dude above is totally right as I have same opinion that there is a place for another social network such as twitter and friendfeed. I wrote more about the Web App 2009 here http://www.livecrunch.com/2008/12/01/perfect-social-network-web-app-for-2009/
So I still think FriendFeed is too confusing and Twitter lacks in management. But hey! Thats just my opinion…others might disagree.
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Robert: Great post again, anyways dude above is totally right as I have same opinion that there is a place for another social network such as twitter and friendfeed. I wrote more about the Web App 2009 here http://www.livecrunch.com/2008/12/01/perfect-social-network-web-app-for-2009/
So I still think FriendFeed is too confusing and Twitter lacks in management. But hey! Thats just my opinion…others might disagree.
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Alasdair makes a valid point and I wish more people would see it. If we would just stop comparing Twitter to FriendFeed, I think people could appreciate each on it’s own much better.
I’m not sure why there is this need to compare them. Most people that really dig FF also like Twitter, which is how I even started using Twitter on the regular. I just don’t think Twitter is good for conversation.
For instance, take this comment thread, prepend @scobleizer or @whoever, where appropriate. Now, how useful would this discussion be if you could only see the pieces of it from those whom you had previously subscribed? Actually, since they would be @’s, you may not have seen any of the replies at all unless they were @ you. How useful is that?
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Alasdair makes a valid point and I wish more people would see it. If we would just stop comparing Twitter to FriendFeed, I think people could appreciate each on it’s own much better.
I’m not sure why there is this need to compare them. Most people that really dig FF also like Twitter, which is how I even started using Twitter on the regular. I just don’t think Twitter is good for conversation.
For instance, take this comment thread, prepend @scobleizer or @whoever, where appropriate. Now, how useful would this discussion be if you could only see the pieces of it from those whom you had previously subscribed? Actually, since they would be @’s, you may not have seen any of the replies at all unless they were @ you. How useful is that?
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Anyone can Twitter, but not many people create feeds
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Anyone can Twitter, but not many people create feeds
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Re number 5 – as of a few months ago, Patrick Ruffini was squatting on the Barack Obama FriendFeed, as he tweeted back in February http://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/statuses/753455532 and as you (and Louis Gray) noted back in June http://friendfeed.com/e/407424cd-4b31-4740-825f-95cdd314667f/Barack-Obama-on-FriendFeed-Don-t-believe-it-I-met/ .
Did Ruffini end up surrendering the account to Obama’s staff?
Hilarious post, by the way, but there are millions of people in the U.S. for whom both Twitter and FriendFeed are too complex. Twitter may be easy to use, but it’s nowhere near as easy as a telephone – or a pen.
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Re number 5 – as of a few months ago, Patrick Ruffini was squatting on the Barack Obama FriendFeed, as he tweeted back in February http://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/statuses/753455532 and as you (and Louis Gray) noted back in June http://friendfeed.com/e/407424cd-4b31-4740-825f-95cdd314667f/Barack-Obama-on-FriendFeed-Don-t-believe-it-I-met/ .
Did Ruffini end up surrendering the account to Obama’s staff?
Hilarious post, by the way, but there are millions of people in the U.S. for whom both Twitter and FriendFeed are too complex. Twitter may be easy to use, but it’s nowhere near as easy as a telephone – or a pen.
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I find the tone of this post pretty degrading. Your assumption that the only possible explanation that a reader doesn’t favor FF over Twitter is their lack of comprehension is arrogant. I like to read about what services you advocate but would prefer if you could do so without belittling people.
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I find the tone of this post pretty degrading. Your assumption that the only possible explanation that a reader doesn’t favor FF over Twitter is their lack of comprehension is arrogant. I like to read about what services you advocate but would prefer if you could do so without belittling people.
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Funny. This is the same with ultra mobile PCs. I say they are for pro-mobile users and not for the average person!
They key here is choice. You want simple – buy a netbook/use twitter. You want high-end flexibility, use a purpose-build UMPC/Friendfeed.
It’s so nice to have choices – nothing is ever a failure.
Steve
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Funny. This is the same with ultra mobile PCs. I say they are for pro-mobile users and not for the average person!
They key here is choice. You want simple – buy a netbook/use twitter. You want high-end flexibility, use a purpose-build UMPC/Friendfeed.
It’s so nice to have choices – nothing is ever a failure.
Steve
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I never really got into FriendFeed. It just seems like too much info for me. Actually, sometimes I get overwhelmed by my twitter stream, too, but at least Tweet Deck lets me make categories for my friends.
Btw… You forgot “newscast director in small, midwestern city”
-Adam
@RockmanAC
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I never really got into FriendFeed. It just seems like too much info for me. Actually, sometimes I get overwhelmed by my twitter stream, too, but at least Tweet Deck lets me make categories for my friends.
Btw… You forgot “newscast director in small, midwestern city”
-Adam
@RockmanAC
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I think you guys kind of miss the point of friendfeed.
IMHO, the point is to aggregate all your disparate and multivariate virtual presences into one spot. Everybody is fed up with trying to keep up with everyone else. My friends want me on facebook, they send me sites over delicious, they complain because I don’t keep up with their flickr feed, or their google reader shared, or whatever. It’s maddening.
Friendfeed is a “virtual presence” feed. One feed. That’s it. The idea of it is that you never have to touch it. It’s automatic.
If it’s important that people know what you are doing every 3 hours, then you can even add twitter to it if you want.
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I think you guys kind of miss the point of friendfeed.
IMHO, the point is to aggregate all your disparate and multivariate virtual presences into one spot. Everybody is fed up with trying to keep up with everyone else. My friends want me on facebook, they send me sites over delicious, they complain because I don’t keep up with their flickr feed, or their google reader shared, or whatever. It’s maddening.
Friendfeed is a “virtual presence” feed. One feed. That’s it. The idea of it is that you never have to touch it. It’s automatic.
If it’s important that people know what you are doing every 3 hours, then you can even add twitter to it if you want.
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I just saw your real time feed, and all I can say is… that’s insane.
I thought my aggregator was bad! You couldn’t read all that if you wanted. If you did nothing but stare at the real time update, you might be able to read it all, in real time. It would be a full time job.
Maybe we all just need to realize that other people aren’t as interested in everything we do as we might think.
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I just saw your real time feed, and all I can say is… that’s insane.
I thought my aggregator was bad! You couldn’t read all that if you wanted. If you did nothing but stare at the real time update, you might be able to read it all, in real time. It would be a full time job.
Maybe we all just need to realize that other people aren’t as interested in everything we do as we might think.
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I took me a while to discover the full power of friendfeed. Now I couldn’t agree (or disagree? :-)) more. Twitter is Ok, It’s about emotions, first reactions and it is fast. But friendfeed is about quality and making statements in the never ending stream of information by bringing it all together. It’s some kind of collective memory.
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I took me a while to discover the full power of friendfeed. Now I couldn’t agree (or disagree? :-)) more. Twitter is Ok, It’s about emotions, first reactions and it is fast. But friendfeed is about quality and making statements in the never ending stream of information by bringing it all together. It’s some kind of collective memory.
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Twitter is way better than friendfeed. It is way better in terms of socializing with other people. The layout is better and you can brand yourself.
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Twitter is way better than friendfeed. It is way better in terms of socializing with other people. The layout is better and you can brand yourself.
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Brilliant! I am a socialmediot and will never figure any of it now ( at least not before 2009-:)
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Brilliant! I am a socialmediot and will never figure any of it now ( at least not before 2009-:)
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The power of FriendFeed, over Twitter, is that you can segment friends and interests. Have a set of entrepreneur people you want to follow? Create a list for them? Want to see Apple-stuff? Join the Apple Room. Don’t want to see certain people all that often? Create a list entitled “once a month friends.” Think someone’s sharing too much from Last.fm / Flickr.com / insert site here? Hide all posts from that site from that user or from everyone. It’s the Twitter-management tool that everyone is missing!
And reading Twitter is like trying to drink from a firehose, Chris Walker, not FriendFeed. There you can slow it down to a trickle.
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The power of FriendFeed, over Twitter, is that you can segment friends and interests. Have a set of entrepreneur people you want to follow? Create a list for them? Want to see Apple-stuff? Join the Apple Room. Don’t want to see certain people all that often? Create a list entitled “once a month friends.” Think someone’s sharing too much from Last.fm / Flickr.com / insert site here? Hide all posts from that site from that user or from everyone. It’s the Twitter-management tool that everyone is missing!
And reading Twitter is like trying to drink from a firehose, Chris Walker, not FriendFeed. There you can slow it down to a trickle.
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thanks for your info. I will try again this time as a loggedin wordpress user my comments seem to land in your spam folder???
Are you personally invested in friendfeed? Do you have shares of the company or do you work for them? Thanks for the info
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thanks for your info. I will try again this time as a loggedin wordpress user my comments seem to land in your spam folder???
Are you personally invested in friendfeed? Do you have shares of the company or do you work for them? Thanks for the info
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11. FriendFeed lets conversations escape blog posts. It’s much easier to just have a twitter badge with your last few tweets.
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11. FriendFeed lets conversations escape blog posts. It’s much easier to just have a twitter badge with your last few tweets.
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> 6. FriendFeed doesn’t have Direct Messaging. Twitter does. Twitter FTW!
Robert, only at the weekend you were dissing Twitter’s DM function. You mischievous scamp(!)
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> 6. FriendFeed doesn’t have Direct Messaging. Twitter does. Twitter FTW!
Robert, only at the weekend you were dissing Twitter’s DM function. You mischievous scamp(!)
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3. FriendFeed has a search engine that’s just like Twitter’s search engine. Except you can use that search engine to only search certain data types. On Twitter you only have one datatype. So much less confusing.
At least on Friendfeed I can find the darn thing without having to type in search.twitter.com, and Friendfeed’s search offers a more open conversation portal then Twitter search does!
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3. FriendFeed has a search engine that’s just like Twitter’s search engine. Except you can use that search engine to only search certain data types. On Twitter you only have one datatype. So much less confusing.
At least on Friendfeed I can find the darn thing without having to type in search.twitter.com, and Friendfeed’s search offers a more open conversation portal then Twitter search does!
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I started using FriendFeed, but I’m not sure I want to add random people (read: network) on it as I do with one of my Twitter accounts because it seems a bit overwhelming. For now I’m using it mostly to watch how much time I waste on the internet.
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I love it. heh I was unsure that I needed FF at first, but I gave it a shot because a) it was recommended b) I like checking out new things! I’ve not been on FF long but *this* is what social networking is all about. I’ve got eclectic tastes and random thoughts – but I stand a much greater chance at actually finding people that I feel that I can connect with on FF than I ever had on Twitter alone.
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I started using FriendFeed, but I’m not sure I want to add random people (read: network) on it as I do with one of my Twitter accounts because it seems a bit overwhelming. For now I’m using it mostly to watch how much time I waste on the internet.
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I love it. heh I was unsure that I needed FF at first, but I gave it a shot because a) it was recommended b) I like checking out new things! I’ve not been on FF long but *this* is what social networking is all about. I’ve got eclectic tastes and random thoughts – but I stand a much greater chance at actually finding people that I feel that I can connect with on FF than I ever had on Twitter alone.
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I use friendfeed to enhance my Twitter and my Tweeps Twitter experience. I don’t think you need one or the other…you need an integration of several things. My Twitter communicates with my friendfeed, Digsby (multiple Yahoo IM’s, AOL, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ and facebook IM), sets my facebook status, updates my myspace page, sets my Skype status, post RSS feeds, scheduled announcements and blog posts. Leverage your time by letting all these wonderful services work together. You don’t need one or the other…LOVE THEM ALL!
blessings,
Wendy
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I use friendfeed to enhance my Twitter and my Tweeps Twitter experience. I don’t think you need one or the other…you need an integration of several things. My Twitter communicates with my friendfeed, Digsby (multiple Yahoo IM’s, AOL, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ and facebook IM), sets my facebook status, updates my myspace page, sets my Skype status, post RSS feeds, scheduled announcements and blog posts. Leverage your time by letting all these wonderful services work together. You don’t need one or the other…LOVE THEM ALL!
blessings,
Wendy
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Truly amazed that so many people thought the article was praising Twitter over FF. You have taken away from this article the exact opposite of what was said.
If a gun was to my head and a friend (who never really ‘got’ social media) asked in order to catchup what my advice would be?
Leapfrog twitter and start on FF.
(That friend was really me)
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Truly amazed that so many people thought the article was praising Twitter over FF. You have taken away from this article the exact opposite of what was said.
If a gun was to my head and a friend (who never really ‘got’ social media) asked in order to catchup what my advice would be?
Leapfrog twitter and start on FF.
(That friend was really me)
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So I’m fairly new to Twitter. I’ve enjoyed the feeds of @scobleizer and @timoreilly; is there any way to display users that BOTH of the above are following?
Just wondering…
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So I’m fairly new to Twitter. I’ve enjoyed the feeds of @scobleizer and @timoreilly; is there any way to display users that BOTH of the above are following?
Just wondering…
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Found this post through friendfeed…
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Found this post through friendfeed…
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You have listed most advantages but yet wonder why FF is not as popular as Twitter ? All your reasons make you a friendfeed guy ;-)- you just complicate and list too many things. A twitter guy would have said put your entire post in 140 chars – ff is too complex,twitter is simple.twitter was early,hence more users/popular.
also,twitter has just one goal-what are you doing? comparing ff to twitter is like comparing an apartment to a swing (ha ha,i fail to find a better one)…in apartment you can cook in kitchen,in swing you can only swing – kitchen is not for you. in bathroom, you can bath, in swing you can only swing, bathroom is not for you…
My thoughts.
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You have listed most advantages but yet wonder why FF is not as popular as Twitter ? All your reasons make you a friendfeed guy ;-)- you just complicate and list too many things. A twitter guy would have said put your entire post in 140 chars – ff is too complex,twitter is simple.twitter was early,hence more users/popular.
also,twitter has just one goal-what are you doing? comparing ff to twitter is like comparing an apartment to a swing (ha ha,i fail to find a better one)…in apartment you can cook in kitchen,in swing you can only swing – kitchen is not for you. in bathroom, you can bath, in swing you can only swing, bathroom is not for you…
My thoughts.
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“There are 59 services that can be brought into FriendFeed. Very few services do the same for Twitter.”
Any service that provides an RSS feed can be brought into Twitter via Twitterfeed. I pipe about a dozen of my online services into Twitter via Twitterfeed and use it and Facebook as my main social networking hubs. I have a FriendFeed account, but it is secondary
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“There are 59 services that can be brought into FriendFeed. Very few services do the same for Twitter.”
Any service that provides an RSS feed can be brought into Twitter via Twitterfeed. I pipe about a dozen of my online services into Twitter via Twitterfeed and use it and Facebook as my main social networking hubs. I have a FriendFeed account, but it is secondary
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I’m not using twitter because I think it’s just meaningless, well I find this post and maybe I should consider to use twitter
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I’m not using twitter because I think it’s just meaningless, well I find this post and maybe I should consider to use twitter
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Serious stuff,
I’ll cancel my friendfeed account when 140 characters feels garrulous.
Friendfeed is a stand-up buffet meal after a religious service.
Twitter is a city center railway station at rush hour.
Pownce is a unisex smoking club.
Sad about Pownce.
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Serious stuff,
I’ll cancel my friendfeed account when 140 characters feels garrulous.
Friendfeed is a stand-up buffet meal after a religious service.
Twitter is a city center railway station at rush hour.
Pownce is a unisex smoking club.
Sad about Pownce.
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I’ve just started using both, but I’ve been using Facebook, myspace, AIM, email, etc for a long time. Twitter is just another of those type services, FriendFeed is an aggregator of most of those services. Using FriendFeed IS like trying to drink from a firehose, but once you figure out how to use it and turn the volume down it works great.
The problem is convincing people to use it, or at least sign up for it. What I would like to see with FF is a way to request individual feeds, like sending a request to a facebook user that would allow me to grab their facebook updates into my FriendFeed list. This would present problems, but it would allow me to use FriendFeed to aggregate the information I want without having to convince my friends to join.
Maybe there is another service that already does this?
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I’ve just started using both, but I’ve been using Facebook, myspace, AIM, email, etc for a long time. Twitter is just another of those type services, FriendFeed is an aggregator of most of those services. Using FriendFeed IS like trying to drink from a firehose, but once you figure out how to use it and turn the volume down it works great.
The problem is convincing people to use it, or at least sign up for it. What I would like to see with FF is a way to request individual feeds, like sending a request to a facebook user that would allow me to grab their facebook updates into my FriendFeed list. This would present problems, but it would allow me to use FriendFeed to aggregate the information I want without having to convince my friends to join.
Maybe there is another service that already does this?
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What’s FriendFeed?
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What’s FriendFeed?
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I’m on FriendFeed. It’s kind of ugly. And…. I’m out.
Really, a troubling part of FriendFeed for me is that I’m not really sure where all the comments and favorites all reside.
Twitter’s API means lots of web apps and blogs can capture, redistribute, re-broadcast, and ARCHIVE tweets I write.
Many friends on FaceBook have no idea that my status updates are tweets.
FriendFeed seems more like FaceBook in that it imports a lot but doesn’t export a lot.
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I’m on FriendFeed. It’s kind of ugly. And…. I’m out.
Really, a troubling part of FriendFeed for me is that I’m not really sure where all the comments and favorites all reside.
Twitter’s API means lots of web apps and blogs can capture, redistribute, re-broadcast, and ARCHIVE tweets I write.
Many friends on FaceBook have no idea that my status updates are tweets.
FriendFeed seems more like FaceBook in that it imports a lot but doesn’t export a lot.
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I won’t comment on FriendFeed as I haven’t had time to familiarize myself with it but between the microblogging (almost *nano*blogging) Twitter and feed aggregating FriendFeed is Google’s Jaiku (http://jaiku.com).
I find Jaiku an indispensable forum for like-minded technologists. For me the core set of features Jaiku provides are just perfect for the effortless publishing of my views, emotions and happenings. While Jaiku headlines/titles (or just jaikus) are generally limited to 140 characters (via SMS or the web), comments can be as long as you need if you input them via the web interface (mobile and regular). Basically you can elicit discussion from your followers with a terse message and only follow up with lengthier opinions if the issue seems to interest people. I think this balances the noise vs. substance quite naturally if you follow an etiquette where you try to refrain from long comments until somebody has first commented your headline (in effect waiting for the subject to “sell”). Somehow without a true comment feature I find Twitter a bit like graffiti, or rumor-like, which to me feels like impeding the exchange of views. If it worked more like instant-messaging with a single line of discussion, I feel I could grok it way better. Now the split view between peoples related tweets is just confusing.
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I won’t comment on FriendFeed as I haven’t had time to familiarize myself with it but between the microblogging (almost *nano*blogging) Twitter and feed aggregating FriendFeed is Google’s Jaiku (http://jaiku.com).
I find Jaiku an indispensable forum for like-minded technologists. For me the core set of features Jaiku provides are just perfect for the effortless publishing of my views, emotions and happenings. While Jaiku headlines/titles (or just jaikus) are generally limited to 140 characters (via SMS or the web), comments can be as long as you need if you input them via the web interface (mobile and regular). Basically you can elicit discussion from your followers with a terse message and only follow up with lengthier opinions if the issue seems to interest people. I think this balances the noise vs. substance quite naturally if you follow an etiquette where you try to refrain from long comments until somebody has first commented your headline (in effect waiting for the subject to “sell”). Somehow without a true comment feature I find Twitter a bit like graffiti, or rumor-like, which to me feels like impeding the exchange of views. If it worked more like instant-messaging with a single line of discussion, I feel I could grok it way better. Now the split view between peoples related tweets is just confusing.
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I had heard of twitter a lot as a blogging tool before, but I didn’t realize it could do this much. I guess I’ll just have to sign up for an account myself. Thanks!
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I had heard of twitter a lot as a blogging tool before, but I didn’t realize it could do this much. I guess I’ll just have to sign up for an account myself. Thanks!
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You are right on the dot! The simpler or lesser “features” Twitter has, the easier for “stupid” people like me to use! And all without a Features FAQ (although a short FAQ may help some others.)
P.S. There is a Twitter add-on (or whatever you call it…a service!) that allows you to post pics and videos on your Twitter page but I can’t remember where it is, or its name!
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You are right on the dot! The simpler or lesser “features” Twitter has, the easier for “stupid” people like me to use! And all without a Features FAQ (although a short FAQ may help some others.)
P.S. There is a Twitter add-on (or whatever you call it…a service!) that allows you to post pics and videos on your Twitter page but I can’t remember where it is, or its name!
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Sometimes minimalistic Twitter,sometimes luxurious Friendfeed.Good choice.
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Sometimes minimalistic Twitter,sometimes luxurious Friendfeed.Good choice.
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I love this list. FriendFeed took me a while but I now GET IT. 🙂
I do hope more users cross over. I get tired of seeing mostly tech centric content. More people will mean more variety… and that will be a good thing.
Great post Sir Scobleizer.
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I love this list. FriendFeed took me a while but I now GET IT. 🙂
I do hope more users cross over. I get tired of seeing mostly tech centric content. More people will mean more variety… and that will be a good thing.
Great post Sir Scobleizer.
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hmmmm … from my still in moderation comment from yesterday
“Maybe there is another service that already does this?”
I find this today.
“Social Inbox essentially allows folks to aggregate not only their web services but also their communications services such as AIM, Gmail, Yahoo and AOL mail into one place.”
Interesting, looks like I’ve got yet another social service to take a look at.
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hmmmm … from my still in moderation comment from yesterday
“Maybe there is another service that already does this?”
I find this today.
“Social Inbox essentially allows folks to aggregate not only their web services but also their communications services such as AIM, Gmail, Yahoo and AOL mail into one place.”
Interesting, looks like I’ve got yet another social service to take a look at.
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I’m still waiting for all my friends to join me on FriendFeed so I have to go visit them at Twitter.
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I’m still waiting for all my friends to join me on FriendFeed so I have to go visit them at Twitter.
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Even though I know you’re doing a reverse psychology trick on me, it won’t work because…
Those things are actually true.
Just because we have a technology doesn’t mean we need to utilize it. More queries and so on aren’t necessarily a good thing. Twitter is great because it’s simple. It’s text messaging for the web.
There’s this old theory out there that says that as time goes on, people will use richer media. So instead of reading books, they’ll listen to audio, and instead of audio they’ll watch TV. That’s the out-dated theory that the video phone will take over the world (I don’t even have a webcam).
But with SMS (and Twitter), that media richness seems to have taken a step back.
Another reason I haven’t jumped on the Friendfeed train is because nobody I know uses it. Barely anyone I know uses Twitter, in fact. They’re still on Facebook and instant messenger.
You know, any old people I talk to seem to all be convinced that all the highschool and college grads these days “understand computers.” I don’t even try to convince them that most of them barely understand MS Office.
Interesting how the further away you are from the technology, the less distinctions you can make about it and the people that use it.
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Even though I know you’re doing a reverse psychology trick on me, it won’t work because…
Those things are actually true.
Just because we have a technology doesn’t mean we need to utilize it. More queries and so on aren’t necessarily a good thing. Twitter is great because it’s simple. It’s text messaging for the web.
There’s this old theory out there that says that as time goes on, people will use richer media. So instead of reading books, they’ll listen to audio, and instead of audio they’ll watch TV. That’s the out-dated theory that the video phone will take over the world (I don’t even have a webcam).
But with SMS (and Twitter), that media richness seems to have taken a step back.
Another reason I haven’t jumped on the Friendfeed train is because nobody I know uses it. Barely anyone I know uses Twitter, in fact. They’re still on Facebook and instant messenger.
You know, any old people I talk to seem to all be convinced that all the highschool and college grads these days “understand computers.” I don’t even try to convince them that most of them barely understand MS Office.
Interesting how the further away you are from the technology, the less distinctions you can make about it and the people that use it.
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Friendfeed and Twitter = mini-blogs for people who can’t handle blogs.
Because Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal and other are just too hard.
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Friendfeed and Twitter = mini-blogs for people who can’t handle blogs.
Because Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal and other are just too hard.
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Robert, give people some time to adjust, the mainstream adoption of Twitter has only just begun (that is EARLY mainstream after the early adopters). Many people play with Twitter for a few hours and conclude its a waste of time for them.
Also, would you agree that Facebook’s new design turns it into somewhat of a FF already (while having a bit more of an actual friend social graph – though not by that much anymore…)? Theirs and FF’s, MyBlogLog’s, etc. aggregation designs are still quite clunky and visually inelegant, to the point that, you’re right, it gives most people somewhat of a headache…
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Robert, give people some time to adjust, the mainstream adoption of Twitter has only just begun (that is EARLY mainstream after the early adopters). Many people play with Twitter for a few hours and conclude its a waste of time for them.
Also, would you agree that Facebook’s new design turns it into somewhat of a FF already (while having a bit more of an actual friend social graph – though not by that much anymore…)? Theirs and FF’s, MyBlogLog’s, etc. aggregation designs are still quite clunky and visually inelegant, to the point that, you’re right, it gives most people somewhat of a headache…
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jhayes, if you happen to see this follow up comment, you CAN do exactly what you want simply by setting up “imaginary friends” and bringing your friends feed into Friendfeed. Any RSS feed can be brought in. http://friendfeed.com/settings/imaginary
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jhayes, if you happen to see this follow up comment, you CAN do exactly what you want simply by setting up “imaginary friends” and bringing your friends feed into Friendfeed. Any RSS feed can be brought in. http://friendfeed.com/settings/imaginary
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I know I’m a bit late on reading this, as everyone on Friendfeed was talking about it days ago. But, I do have a very simple simple comment…ROFL!!!
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I know I’m a bit late on reading this, as everyone on Friendfeed was talking about it days ago. But, I do have a very simple simple comment…ROFL!!!
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Yestereday, I registered my account with FriendFeed. But its much complicated than what Twitter is. I did not open that site again!
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Yestereday, I registered my account with FriendFeed. But its much complicated than what Twitter is. I did not open that site again!
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Very very interesting post..I like this one. gotta bookmark this one.Cheers,sweethomeimprove.comsain-web.com
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Twitter is 10x better than FreindFeed. The plugins that twitter allows are great and very very useful. Twitter can be integrated with just about any website. Kansas City Mo Bands | Fat Loss 4 Idiots Diet | Autozubehör
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