Comments on: Friendfeed’s User and Usability Problem

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

really good points – i like how you call the people ghosts

By: Dion Almaer

Dion Almaer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Have you tried Gmail for awhile? I find it a much better experience. Don’t spend time organizing into folders, just search. Labels work just fine as “folders” with the only difference being that if you delete a folder you delete all of the mail in it.

With Gmail I am able to tweak the hell out of it too since it is so Greasemonkey friendly. Add the multipane additions and those that are in Labs and you have something that for someone who lives in email a lot is far superior. I have key access to anything I want. it is MUCH faster that Yahoo! Mail too. Take another look my friend ;)

By: Tom Kephart

Tom Kephart — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I know you were trying to keep the idea that FriendFeed is a “conversation stealer” out of this post, Allen, but of course the whole cross-posting loop is a contributor to the “fragmented conversation” (your term from your May 2008 post) which is what keeps me from using FriendFeed. Simply put, I have too little time to reply to commenters on my blog and people who respond to tweets and Facebook status changes, etc., as it is, without also having to check whether another set of followers have left comments via FriendFeed.

I still like your proposed solution from last May: “Remove comments from FriendFeed and have FriendFeed aggregate (view only) the comments from all of the social services they aggregate. That would be the absolute best scenario. A user can read all of the comments on FriendFeed but to actually comment they go to the source.” That keeps the consolidated stream usable while reducing the need to constantly parse multiple response points.

And when you add the “ghosts” who don’t see any of the responses on FriendFeed (I’d be one of those, I’m afraid), well, the quality of the “conversation” diminishes rapidly.

BTW, I won’t be commenting on this on FriendFeed. :)

By: Michael Fidler

Michael Fidler — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The twitter to ff conversation problem is a big one. It’s still the best place to share things (posts, pics, vids, etc). One of the things that bothers me the most about it though, is how short lived a discussion can be. Seldom does a discussion ever last more day, usually it’s more like an hour or less. I think that’s one of the reasons I like socialmedian so much. Over there a discussion can easily last days, and it’s not unusual to receive a reply weeks later. Which reminds me, Do you mind if I post this?

By: wayne schulz

wayne schulz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m going to inject my opinion on a couple more:

1. It’s hard to know who people are and why a discussion they’re leading on a particular topic may be worth following versus just a random “friend of”

2. Friendfeed has evolved into way too “cliquey” a service – the only conversations that seem to gain momentum are those involving the elite. New users simply give up and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Where I think Friendfeed works is as an collector of content — save for the problems with messages that you point out. I especially like it as a way to send content to Facebook.

Overall I don’t think FF has potential to be a standalone product but works better as the source of content to be fed into another system such as Facebook.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks Tom – I guess you are right – and thanks for commenting here!

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can post anything to anywhere Michael – I don’t mind. I am not a SM user for a variety of reasons – one of which is just that I don’t have the time – it does seem like SM is much "quieter" in buzz since they got acquired.

The issue you describe is because everything is in one forum so it gets pushed down so quickly.

By: Chris Herbert

Chris Herbert — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve added your post to my PROs and CONs FriendFeed list: http://friendfeed.com/e/03d22b34-a9f9-4f69-a461-26a2978109c0/Why-do-you-like-don-t-like-FriendFeed/

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

nice list!

By: Charlie Anzman

Charlie Anzman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Allen – I suppose the big question remains …. Why are people 10 or 20 times more apt to comment on a story on Friendfeed (especially if there’s a link on the blog) than in blog comments? It’s the juice that keeps the engine goin’

By: Shevonne

Shevonne — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great list that made me chuckle once or twice. I have noticed that some people have feeds they set up a long time ago in FF, but never really use the service. Now that I read your post, I will make sure to see when was the last time he/she posted before I respond, unless I am sending it to his/her Twitter.

By: Hutch Carpenter

Hutch Carpenter — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Good to see FriendFeed is getting detailed analysis of its service. Seriously, most companies would kill for this kind of attention.

I also blogged last Friday about this, using Tamar’s post as well. In FriendFeed: Social Network? Or Uber Information Information Service? (http://bit.ly/13zXt) I argued that it’s fine to have what you’re termed as “ghost accounts”. Why? I’m using FriendFeed as my central place to track what’s happening out on the web. FriendFeed’s got amazing tools for managing information, unlike anything in the market.

Facebook added the lifestreams of your close friends. But no one is providing the platform for tracking conversation and the real-time web like FriendFeed.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

charlie – it’s easy to figure out – early adopters like it lazy – this is the rule. so thats why they comment on ff not the source. they forget that they are hurting the source where they just picked up some piece of education.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks Hutch – I added your link to the post – I will do more of these type of reviews in the coming weeks with other services. I am not a fan of the ghost accounts – if you want the love you gots to give the love.

By: warzabidul

warzabidul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

There is one simple solution to the tweets that go unanswered in friendfeed. In my case the solution was simply to hide all tweets, only when there is a comment will they appear from now on. I might be speaking to myself but at least I’m not interacting with a ghost. I’m interacting with both my friendfeed friends/followers, whatever the technical term is and they see it.

It doesn’t matter that ghosts are there. It’s for us as early adopters to become part of the conversation, first by reacting and eventually by being listened to. It’s not something that happens overnight and we’ve got to understand that.