FriendFeed Doesn't Care About Mona

Written by Allen Stern - August 27, 2008

Last month we wrote about the "FriendFeed 9" which were the 9 defaults that FriendFeed offers to each new account. FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit says that only a few people actually see this default list because most new accounts are referred from someone else which eliminates this default list all together. I am not sure I agree with that - when the early adopter blogs posted about the new beta last week, how many new signups did FriendFeed see via direct links - I will bet that it's most of them. In fact, the number must be great to the default list because default user Scoble noted yesterday that he can tell when FriendFeed is doing well in terms of user growth simply by how many new subs he gets via the default option.

With the launch of the new beta this week, I thought it was a perfect time to take a look and see where the FriendFeed 9 are now and whether they made any changes to the structure. The FriendFeed 9 is now the FriendFeed 24 - that's the only change that has been made. The list is completely popularity based, not activity/usage based. This type of popularity list means that the 24 selected individuals will always appear on the list.

This is a very poor way to pimp people - it shows that FriendFeed doesn't give two knishes about their loyal and active users. This is pretty clear because the most active FriendFeed user Mona (her blog) isn't even on the list.

Here's my video on the subject:

Robert Scoble says he wants off the list and in Louis Gray's post today about the new FriendFeed he discusses this popularity list. He notes, "22 of those users were men, 22 were white and there were two Asian (one male, one female)".

All these popularity lists do is keep the top on top (without any quality backing) and never allow for any user/content discovery. I hope that FriendFeed will look into changing their default policy in the near future. I wrote this post and video because I think every startup should consider the lessons learned here for their own projects.

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COMMENTS - Add New Comment

Submitted by FriendFeed on August 27, 2008 - 5:28pm.

Maybe we don't like you either.

Submitted by Aaron Krug on August 27, 2008 - 5:51pm.

Nice post, I always appreciate the CN point of view.

Submitted by centernetworks on August 27, 2008 - 8:59pm.

Thanks Aaron - that means a lot to me. I am just trying to make people think - my mission is to help create better startups and web services.

Submitted by Roger Kondrat on August 28, 2008 - 2:23am.

Hi Allen,

I really thank you for pushing this out as I am embarrassed by FF's complacency on this issue.

If FF 'can't get around' to working on it and it is clearly unethic and counter-community why not deactivate it temporarily. T

ruely at this point I am actually becoming emotional about this as I am not interested in working my butt off in FF to only see 24 other users get most of the play. Its plain wrong and because of it I am looking for an FF replacement, once I find something I can content myself with I will leave as I can't support their behaviour.

I am voting with my feet!

Submitted by Mona N on August 27, 2008 - 6:10pm.

Allen, thank you for the love :) I appreciate it.

But - frankly - It doesn't matter if the creators of FriendFeed appreciate me or not. Everyone I interact with on a daily basis is what makes FriendFeed my 'home' ;) I'm here for the community and not for FriendFeed. Besides, I'd rather have people find me for the stuff I post, and not because I'm on some defaulted list. And more importantly, I don't want a t-shirt ANYway (no offense, Louis!)

Btw, I can't wait to meet you in a few weeks!! :)

ps my comment is not showing up, so I just copy and pasted what I wrote in FF, here. Sorry if it dupes :(

Submitted by Mona N on August 28, 2008 - 12:02am.

...and I wanted to add (sorry for spamming your comments, Allen) that I can only speak for myself :) Over caffeinated typing FTL :|

Submitted by centernetworks on August 28, 2008 - 8:23am.

you are welcome here anytime!

Submitted by Majento on August 27, 2008 - 7:14pm.

True, true, totally agreed on Mona, thanks for the post and vid.
I'd love to see alternative lists by: Location, Activity, Content Types (blog, visual, audio, micro etc), many ways to go about this feature. If FriendFeed recommend peeps they should at least make it more interesting.

Submitted by centernetworks on August 27, 2008 - 8:58pm.

agree - i'd love to see a list of people say from London or Berlin.

Submitted by Louis Gray on August 27, 2008 - 7:17pm.

To clarify, I didn't say I wanted to be removed from the defaults. I said I was flattered.

Also, your comments on being active vs. being popular don't take into account that there are some of "the 24" that are active. Robert Scoble and I are quite active, as are Steve Rubel, Jeremiah Owyang, Loic LeMeur and of course, the founders, Bret Taylor and Paul Buchheit.

If I were to change it, I would trend toward those that are not just activity based, but those that encourage conversation. For example, I may follow you and engage on your items, but not some of the others here, which would push you up. I think Mona is a great example of a popular person who is engaged, and should at least be on the short list.

Assuming the 24 shows, I should be able to say "Not interested" to some people, and refresh to get new, or say "Show 24 more", etc. Facebook, Rejaw and Plaxo do a good job here.

Submitted by centernetworks on August 27, 2008 - 8:58pm.

Thanks for the comment Louis - I will update the post accordingly. I did note in the video that some of the 24 are active or semi-active. The founders should automatically be excluded from the default list. Same thing I told Daniel Ha on Disqus.

I would agree with you overall - let the user pick a topic and then show some random batch of people who meet x criteria.

If we continue to pimp the same few people, no one else will ever have a chance to shine.

Submitted by Majento on August 27, 2008 - 9:31pm.

I've been using this lovely script by Hao Chen:
Better FriendFeed "recommended"
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/29324

Submitted by Jesse Stay on August 27, 2008 - 10:12pm.

Allen, how are you getting the 24? I'm not able to get a default 24, only 9, and that's if I don't select Facebook or gmail contacts at first. When I select Facebook or gmail contacts it auto-populates the list based on my friends from Facebook or gmail, and is not a default list at all.

Submitted by centernetworks on August 27, 2008 - 10:45pm.

Jesse - the 24 is on beta.friendfeed.com - the 9 is on the current site

Submitted by Jesse Stay on August 27, 2008 - 11:02pm.

Allen, it's doing the same for me on beta as well - only 9. Maybe they're still experimenting with this on beta? On both, if you enter your Facebook or gmail friends the list is no longer default, too.

Submitted by Louis Gray on August 27, 2008 - 11:58pm.

Jesse, did you reboot your computer three times and then delete your registry? That worked for me.

Submitted by Mona N on August 28, 2008 - 12:00am.

and don't forget the .dll's!

Submitted by Jesse Stay on August 28, 2008 - 12:18am.

(Allen, your comments are annoying! I keep having to re-enter my info) I thought you were on a Mac Louis? ;) I just reseted Safari completely, go to beta.friendfeed.com, and sign up, only shows 12 (okay, so it's 12, not 9, but it's not 24). Entering Facebook info removes the default list to a more intelligent list. I'm going to Qik this in just a sec - stay tuned to Twitter and you can watch as I do it.

Submitted by Jesse Stay on August 28, 2008 - 12:28am.

See my demo here - you can see what I'm saying:

http://qik.com/video/240239

Submitted by centernetworks on August 28, 2008 - 8:25am.

Hmm - thanks for the Qik!

Here's how you get to the 24 (or at least how I do it):