Oh, Tumblr‘s lead developer, Marco Arment, said yesterday on his Tumblelog that he doesn’t listen to me because he doesn’t think I know what I’m talking about. Oh, that’s a bummer, cause I was just about to tell the world a few things:

1. That Tumblr is doing the most innovative stuff out there in the world of blogging.
2. That I expect that in 2009 Tumblr will come out on top of the growth curve for services like Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.
3. That Marco is brilliant.
4. That Tumblr is well positioned to make a ton of money over next couple of years, even with the bad economy factored in because they were going to charge their users, something that SmugMug has done and done quite well with. (Of course, that’s probably why they picked up $4.5 million in venture last week).

But, like Marco said, I don’t know what I’m talking about, so you can move along and go back to Facebook.

🙂

Oh, and I subscribed. Why? Cause I like following brilliant people who don’t listen to me. They tend to change the world.

UPDATE: Marco answered. Wait a second, how did he see this post if he isn’t listening to me? Funny, he learned about it from a Facebook friend.

I haven’t added either Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect yet, but they sure are taking over tons of blogs very quickly. TechCrunch and Gawker both turned on Facebook. So, I asked my readers on FriendFeed for whether they have turned on either and tons of results came in (good resource so you can see how everyday bloggers are using these technologies).

My blog here is hosted on WordPress.com, which makes it difficult to use widgets like these. I want to go back to Matt Mullenweg and ask him which ones he’s going to support (he founded Automattic, which makes and hosts WordPress here).

Anyway, which ones are you using? What have you learned, if you’ve already used them? Have they improved the time spent on your blog? Do your users like having these widgets? Why have some blogs seen more than 2,000 people use them, while other blogs only have a handful of users? (It doesn’t seem to be totally based on popularity of the blog, but might have to do with where they are placed on the page, and how they are talked about on the content of the blog too).

Other questions I have:

1. Is this a winner-take-all game? Will people feel pressured to add both widgets? Will, at some point, they remove one? (I think it is, long term, if they stay similar. I hate clutter on my blog, and if one gets slow, it’d be tossed in a micro-second, and I’m already noticing that the same friends are on both anyway — so why not just get rid of one?).

2. Will there be advertising that appears? Spam? Bad behavior (I saw one obscene icon already). Of course advertising will appear on these widgets eventually. They might say no today, but three years from now? Right. And, even if they don’t put ads on the widgets themselves, they certainly will have an ad sales force that can tell you EVERYTHING about the blogs based on who has visited them.

3. Why is the UI so rudimentary? These are like mini rolodexes and already users are asking for search, list views, and other features because soon the more popular blogs will have 10s of thousands of users in these systems (maybe millions for sites like Huffington Post or TechCrunch) and they are already useless with 2,000 users so soon people will just stop using them unless they evolve quickly.

Anyway, tons of blogs are talking about Google’s addition of Twitter into feeds that integrate into its system. Here’s the best blogs I found on the topic:

TechCrunch: What the Twitter/ Google Announcement Means.
ReadWriteWeb: Google Brings Twitter to Friend Connect.
Social Times: The Social Advertising Race has Begun.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Google is getting picked up a lot more because of the Twitter announcement.

I see Louis Gray has posted a list of his 10 top new web services for 2008.

I thought the list was missing a few of the best new services. So, I did two comparisons:

1. I asked Twitter for what services they liked the best that were new.
2. I compared all of Louis’ top services on Compete.com to my favorite new service, FriendFeed, to see how they measured up in traffic.

First, let’s compare in Compete. I included TechMeme in the charts as a baseline since that news service continues to be popular.

1. Twitter Search. Can’t compare here, but Louis is right. This is a service that not only got popular this year but also was acquired by Twitter.
2. SocialMedian. FriendFeed had much more growth this year. But SocialMedian is up and to the right.
3. Backtype. They were up, but only slightly compared to FriendFeed. Jury is still out here.
4. TweetDeck. Guy Kawasaki uses it, so that’s enough evidence. TweetDeck actually grew faster than Backtype or SocialMedian, so they deserve to be higher up on the list.
5. Strands. My friend Francine Hardaway loves Strands, so that’s enough evidence that Louis is right, but they struggled to find an audience this year when compared to the other services on the list.
6. ReadBurner. They struggled more than anyone on this list so far to get growth. Sorry, but in a recession growth is job #1 and no one has come close yet to FriendFeed in growth metric.
7. Feedly. This one is like ReadBurner. Struggling to show growth.
8. Gnip. Flatlined.
9. Toluu. Flatlined.
10. SocialToo. Show a lot of growth in last month. Impressive compared to Feedly, Gnip, Toluu.

What are my favorite new things, written before I started this post?

1. FriendFeed. Growth solid all year long except last month. The best of any of these services mentioned so far.
2. Qik. Good growth earlier this year, then flatlined.
3. TripIt. Nice solid growth all year long, but not fast enough to get VC’s hot and bothered.
4. Evernote. Solid growth this year, but flatlined past few months.

What about Twitterer’s favorite services? How did they compare? My comments in italics.

jgsilvestrone @scobleizer top new applications:  Green Home Huddle, Green Directory Montana Sorry, Louis Gray is a better picker. These services aren’t even on Compete.com’s traffic list.
TexasGirlErin @Scobleizer ShareThis and newcomer Modista will be something I use in 2009. Wow, we have a winner! ShareThis.com beats FriendFeed’s growth. Louis, how did you miss this one? Modista? Try again, flatline growth.
nickck @Scobleizer friendfeed, zotero (which is the best notating app for firefox). Sorry, Zotero is flatlined, so Louis Gray is better at picking new companies.
erincollopy @scobleizer -Tweet Deck and Kayak for travel. Infraction! Kayak existed before the year started and was very popular. It grew and now is falling in popularity. Go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect $200.
meaganm @Scobleizer I’d say ShareThis! And you’d beat Louis Gray, but do you have nine more in your pocket?
davidhhendricks @Scobleizer tripit I love it to, so you get points for picking the same thing I did.
KellyJohns @Scobleizer Friendfeed is the best, thanks for recommending Robert, Qik too if it would actually work on my Blackberry or iPhone. Qik works on Blackberry now, iPhone if you jailbreak it.
zaphodd @Scobleizer Services: Meebo, iTunes App store, Boxee Hey, I didn’t know about Meebo before this year, but they were already popular. I will give you a point because they grew really nicely this year. Boxee? Definitely cool. Not much growth until late in the year, but still pretty flat.
jblock @Scobleizer Yammer and FriendFeed. Yammer won TC50, so they deserve to be on the list. They grew really fast right after that, but have leveled off since then.
OfficeHax @Scobleizer snackr is the hottest service that I started using in 08. Snackr has too few users to be found by compete.com. No “beat Louis Gray” trophie for you.
sweyn @Scobleizer Laconi.ca is my pick for new service. Oh, let’s just put Plurk in there too. Plurk grew nicely. Louis Gray missed that one. Laconi.ca wasn’t even found by compete. The service identi.ca, which is based on Laconi.ca grew, fell, and now is flatlined. So, Plurk beats it. You’re no Louis Gray!
JimmySky @Scobleizer: Digsby, Evernote. Evernote has already been covered. Digsby grew quite well all year, except for last two months where it went up like crazy and then fell back down. Did Oprah talk about it? Anyway, you beat Louis Gray, so congrats!
teleken @Scobleizer Twitter, FriendFeed, last.fm. Twitter? That started in 2006. So, infraction! Last.fm? Same thing. Although both grew nicely so at least your heart is in right place.
JonathanDeamer @Scobleizer Hottest new service that I wasn’t using in 2007? Spotify. Best music app I’ve ever used, no question. You seen it? I haven’t seen it, invite-only at this point so compete.com doesn’t have any data for it. Gotta check it out!
thatJENgirl @Scobleizer Yahoo Pipes, WidgetBox, Webnode.com. Webnode had pretty flat growth, but better than a few of Louis’ choices, so you win there. WidgetBox? That was popular at the beginning of the year but had nice growth all year long.
dcfemella @Scobleizer FriendFeed, Seesmic, and Twitter. Seesmic saw nice growth this year, except last few months.
GR8CDNPumpkin @Scobleizer Brightkite, Pixelpipe, Friendfeed, Social|Median, Strands … that is most of them I think. Brightkite saw great growth. You are better than Louis Gray! Pixelpipe? Not so much.
alyero @scobleizer hottest new service – Planypus (www.planypus.com). Planypus? Um, no. Sorry. Try again.
sadekhm @Scobleizer Friendfeed, Plurk, Dropbox, Tumblr. Tumblr had bigger growth than FriendFeed, which explains why it just closed $4.5 million in funding. A tiny bit unfair because it started out more popular, though, so really was a hot app of 2007.
dave1meyer @Scobleizer – best new tool for me in 2008 was Things for Mac/iPhone. Great GTD app. Hard to judge this one because it’s an iPhone app but compete.com was not impressed.
lirontocker @Scobleizer Dropbox. Nice growth, but a lot slower than FriendFeed. Better than many of Louis’ picks, though.
jakks @Scobleizer Friendfeed. Socialcast. Blip.fm. Um, Socialcast wasn’t even on the chart, so no. Go back to the Louis Gray school of finding new cool services.
lirontocker @Scobleizer Truphone Another iPhone app, so compete.com probably under ranking this.
Eyebee @Scobleizer Hottest new service here: Friendfeed, Disqus, 12seconds.TV. Oh, Disqus is a major growth winner this year. So is 12seconds.tv. You win the “beat Louis Gray” game.

There are lots of other suggestions on this thread on FriendFeed: