FriendFeed Archive

Note: As you read this post, I’d ask that you read it in the mindset of a mainstream Internet user.

Currently it seems the top three services fighting for the “real time feed” crown are Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. Dave Winer recently asked what FriendFeed would be if it didn’t pull in Twitter – the answer is simple: a service with very little activity. But for all three services, I find that there is nothing but confusion over the structure of how the three services work together and can imagine that mainstream Internet users face the same issues. I will use Friendfeed in the examples below because it faces the most mainstream issues but there are similar issues with all three services.

In terms of initial content inflow, Facebook and Twitter mainly gather their content via comments (e.g. “my dog just peed on the carpet”, “i had a roasted turkey sandwich for lunch”) while Friendfeed mainly gathers content by pulling in the comments from Twitter and Facebook and then applying a layer of content aggregation on top of that. Of course many populate their Twitter feeds via aggregated links which complicates the issue even further.
Continue reading “Real Time Confusion: Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook” »

When I woke up from a great dream about tech blogs linking to each other, I loaded up Friendfeed and was hit with a message. What struck me as odd was that the item didn’t appear to come from a “room” or from a “person/user” but rather Friendfeed itself.

Here’s the message:

As you can see it notes “shameless self-promotion” although I didn’t notice that when the item first loaded (didn’t have my glasses on so I may have missed it). Could this be the start of advertising in the “stream” for Friendfeed?

Update: Funny enough, the above “promotion” seems to be stuck to the page for a very long time – it seems like the last few items are hours old allowing the promotion to remain – something seems off.

Friendfeed user Tina wonders the same thing with her post asking whether tags and possibly advertising is coming. Tina took a look at the source and it also looks like some sort of promotions might be on their way. Others in the Frienfeed thread also believe ads are coming from this item. It looks like you can “hide” the item.

Could ads be on the way? Somehow I am betting Friendfeed users will be ok with ads because they want to support the Friendfeed team while the same ads on Twitter would bring upon a revolt.

If Friendfeed pushes ads to the content stream, you have to believe that Twitter and Facebook won’t be far behind. Last week I asked Mark Zuckerberg why he allows Facebook users to use desktop tools without ads.

Over the past month or so, there’s been a lot of chatter that Friendfeed users want this person or that person to use the service. What these FriendFeed users are missing is that the people they are talking about are already using Friendfeed. So what’s the difference between using Friendfeed and using Friendfeed?

As social aggregators like Friendfeed continue to grow in popularity, there are two basic types of users: passive and active. Once you create a Friendfeed account and add some feeds to it, you are now a passive user. Regular commenting and/or clicking the "like" button on threads moves you into active status. The other categorization puts a user into either the publisher category or the user category (you could fall into both categories). Publishers are looking to get as much traffic out of a service as they can while users are there to be part of a community.

If we look at the old style of forums, you basically had to be an active user. There was no other way to participate and even then it wasn’t easy as pimping your own stuff was typically a no-no. In the new world of forums 2.0 (i.e Friendfeed), you are welcome to pimp your own work as heavy as you like.

Let’s assume that one (or more) of the major tech bloggers has not already created an account (either as passive or active) on Friendfeed. Now he or she creates and account and adds feeds for their blog, videos, photos, etc. Because they are a big name in the tech world, people instantly begin to follow him/her on Friendfeed. Basically the work for that blogger is now done as a publisher. They will enjoy having their content shared, liked and commented on by other Friendfeed active users and will receive additional traffic to their blog.

I am not sold on why publishers who are using social aggregators as traffic drivers should participate. How does it benefit their blog? In fact, I wonder what percentage of high-profile bloggers signed up for a Friendfeed account early on, used it for a few days and then left but are still "participating" via other users.

In addition, if you are questioning how they might participate in conversations on the social aggregators around their content – there’s an easy answer for that. Commenting services like Disqus and blog plugins are pulling comments from Friendfeed back into the publisher’s blog. So it makes sense that the publisher comment on his/her blog and have their readers benefit from the responses. And services like Backtype will feed the comments back into their Friendfeed account, completing the loop.

Naturally for Friendfeed to grow, they need to register more active users not passive publishers. But if these passive publishers don’t participate on other blogs, what makes you think they will participate on Friendfeed? I do believe that everyone should have a Friendfeed account and participate as a passive publisher. There’s just no reason not to.

The social web spawns a new network every 5 seconds. Roughly.

And every 3 seconds, a new app rears its shiny little head to offer centralization, aggregation, and status- or file-pushing for the dozen or more profiles and sites maintained by the average user.

For profile whores (guilty!), these sites tempt with promises of the ultimate tool for managing your online presence in a cohesive way, assembling the fragments of data into a unified front for your personal brand. Forgoing any commentary on the narcissism and navel-gazing of a fruitless generation, I’ll limit my overarching criticism of these services to two main points: They’re not sticky, and they cause redundancies.

With regard to my first point, it’s very common (for me, at least) to sign up for a still-in-beta site after being digitally flirted with across a few channels, only to discover that the range, scope, usability, and urgency (what I’d call the addictiveness factors) of the offering weren’t compelling enough to prompt return visits.

As for the second point, we’ll get into more specific detail in the reviews below; let it suffice to say that I’m connected to most friends across several networks. If you or I use a status-pushing or file-pushing service, I’m getting the same message from you on Twitter, Facebook, and likely the aggregating site, as well. And no one wants to see your TwitPics of breakfast three times in a row.

“But that’s not how it works!” you may cry. “Site X eliminates your need to go to those other sites!”

Welcome to the real world. Like most users, I still occasionally have to visit Facebook; and I even (gasp!) still use the Twitter.com web interface. So until your Super Magical Candy Mountain stream-aggregating site gains critical mass and actually fulfills its brand promise of being “the only social site you’ll ever need to use,” redundancies are an unfortunate fact, both redundancies in content and redundancies in services offered. In other words, don’t pitch your site as “the ultimate contact address book.” I’ve already got one, and it’s already got the critical mass to live up to that promise (here’s looking at you, Zuckerberg). Likewise, building an independent microblogging function into your service is pointless on top of pointless; God already made Twitter once.

Now, let’s get on with the roast!

FriendFeed: Like a Mao Suit for Your Social Streams.

The granddaddy of aggregators, FriendFeed is more commonly known by its street name, “Scoble’s lapdog.”

The ‘Feed pushes updates to Twitter, rounds up links you like, streams activity in any feed reader, and even generates a nice little widget for your blog or site. From FriendFeed, you can post text, photos, or links; you can also grab other RSS feeds and insert them in your stream.

The three problems I’ve had with FriendFeed since the Scoble pimping began are that it’s butt ugly (no objections, right?) and that it totally typifies the two abovementioned overarching objections.

Customization: Gives new meaning to the term “absolute zero.”

Content Posting: You can comment on and “like” posted updates or links, and you can share links through a bookmarking function. You can also post text and photos. Rather thorough!

Mobile Functionality: Email, MMS, and an “iPhone-optimized interface.”

Roasted: Well done, but could’ve been done much better. “Mmmm” for “missed opportunity.”

Chi.mp: Hollered Beta.

Chi.mp gives the best vanity URLs of any social site. Username.mp. So simple. So easy to remember. And the user interface stands out as one of the prettiest, most fleshed-out in its class. Still, customization is minimal; I can’t even suss out how to change my avatar. I’m guessing it’ll change when I update my Facebook avatar, but shouldn’t that be a bit more intuitive?

Also, the idea of “personas” has been employed to some effect here. Mom and your boss and your Friday night crew all get to see different sides of you, on the web as in life. But shouldn’t we have the ability to decide how many personas we get to have? And how do we know which users see which content? O’Dell is confused on this point; it seems like a great and necessary but complicated concept.

I can’t offer praise for Chi.mp’s “mini blog” or photo upload functions; on my profile, they push updates to Facebook and Twitter, but not to WordPress or Flickr, which would be the more intuitive choices and would eliminate the need for visiting other sites to repost redundant content. I also question the usefulness of the email forwarding; I can set up whatever@jolieodell.mp and have those messages forwarded to my Gmail account, but… Why?

And why in god’s sweet name do I have to fill out a profile for personal and professional information when the site’s already syncing with my Facebook and should be able to do the same with my LinkedIn? After bitching on said point on Twitter, Anthony from Chi.mp kindly “hollered beta,” admitting there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Customization: I can pick one of a few backgrounds. Or even a solid color.

Content posting: Mini-blogs and photos which update to Facebook and Twitter.

Mobile Functionality: Uuuuh…

Roasted: Rare, but keep cooking. Put that shrimp back on the barbie, or whatever it is they say in New Zealand.

Retaggr: Thanks for the Widget.

Retaggr is a pure-as-the-driven-snow aggregator. Your custom URL is your social web “business card,” so to speak. Your Retaggr card can be emailed, tweeted, pinged, etc.; and the Retaggr widget makes a handy all-in-one stream feeder for your blog or website. Heck, even I use it. It also gives you a nifty ClicktoAdd.Me URL that allows users to quickly peruse their Internet-stalking options and (in some cases) instantly connect to you across those social sites.

But the widget’s rather ugly, the profile page is useless, and the functionality is limited. As a result, the odds  you’ll forget about the site shortly after you sign up are pretty high.

Customization: Users can choose themes, backgrounds, colors, and a vanity URL.

Content Posting: None; this baby’s a pure aggregator. You can tag images, but only on Retaggr-enabled sites.

Mobile Functionality: See above; so, none.

Roasted: Throw it on the coals and douse it in lighter fluid. It’s done.

Pixelpipe: Actually Doesn’t Suck!

For some cosmic/hormonal reason, I hated the Pixelpipe live demo I saw last week at SF New Tech. After TechCrunch’s review, I spewed some bile into the comments section about how there are already too many value-free aggregating/status pushing services and went on with my life. I now must nibble lightly on my words; Pixelpipe doesn’t suck.

The suprisingly simple three-click process for adding most “pipes” is among the fastest processes I’ve seen yet. Unfortunately, it’s giving me unidentifiable technical problems with pushing status updates to Facebook (mystery error message FTW?), and double-posting to TwitPic/Twitter (see the all-important redundancy note at the beginning of this gargantuan post). And I still can’t get the background image upload form to work.

Customization: Allows for custom or colored background/headline on a hosted page; but so far, I haven’t been able to make that work.

Content Posting: Uploads status updates/microblogs, photos, videos, audio, and other files; then pushes the content to any relevant social sites you’ve linked.

Mobile Functionality: Email, MMS, an iPhone app, an Android app, etc. Seems poised for mobile greatness.

Roasted: Medium rare. Stick a fork in it and send feedback to @brettb.

Cliqset: Back to the Drawing Board, Kids.>

This is literally the profile I forgot I had. I tried to sign up for a beta invite, only to discover my username had already been taken… by me.

Even the Cliqset blog seems confused on what the hell Cliqset is supposed to do. The product is unfocused and, currently, it doesn’t… do… anything. Wait, is that even possible?

Oh, right, it’s the social web. Ninety percent of these “revolutionary platforms” don’t do anything.

Cliqset, however, is particularly offensive, spurning existing aggregation services and data portability while offering the most grandiose and amibitious plan to offer users a single social identity on the web.

Unfortunately, Cliqset neither gathers data from my other social sites, nor does it push my updates to my existing profiles. Guess what it is? Just another microblogging service, but with less functionality and no mass of users.

Customization: None.

Content posting: Status updates that go nowhere outside Cliqset.com

Mobile Functionality: Kill me now.

Roasted: You can’t roast a turd.

Posterous: Emailing Like It’s 1996.

The setup process (sending an email to post@posterous.com) was delightfully novel, leading me to a super simple two-button service-adding process for linking my Posterous account to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, the ol’ blog, and… and…

Oh, wait. I guess that’s it.

No support for Last.fm, YouTube, Vimeo, Plurk (hah, ok, that was a joke), or anything like that. Users can send email to help@posterous.com to suggest more services.

Posterous offers an interesting bookmarking function for quick posting and commenting, and users can control what gets posted where by specifying an email address (Twitter-only posts go to twitter@posterous.com; but what if you want an update to go only to Twitter AND Facebook without having to send two emails?).

Overall, the functions are all tied to email and limited accordingly (good luck uploading that 3 minute video clip, dude!), and the “meh” factor is high.

Customization: I get to choose my avatar.

Content Posting: Borderline CMS-y. Can post videos, audio, photos, and text to a blog.

Mobile Functionality: If you can email from your phone, you’re golden.

Roasted: Medium. The blog part is tasty, but the constant repetition and redundancy can be a bit tough and chewy.

And that’s the lot!

Who did I miss? Did I leave out your startup? Do you have a better idea?

Yesterday social forum provider FriendFeed launched a new beta version of their application which apparently is more real-time than real-time was previously. I haven’t used it yet so I can’t give you my reaction as to it’s real-timeliness. My guess (sadly) is that they didn’t address the real issues – you know… the business side.

Last night I listened to a recording of a podcast where Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington explained that FriendFeed has no chance against Twitter. My take is that FriendFeed is not a competitor to Twitter and the FF team would be smart to get away from the comparisons. Friendfeed is a social forum software and Twitter is IRC 2.0. Everyone wants to make a battle out of the two for cheap pageviews but as I’ve said for a long time now, they are not competitors. I did find it interesting that when asked how he describes the service, FriendFeed co-founder Paul Bucheit basically said the exact same line as Tumblr uses about being the easiest way to share online.

But let’s assume for a moment that Michael is correct and FriendFeed has no chance to compete in the space. What does that mean for his investment in social sharing software Seesmic? Tonight, Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur is going to take the world through a demo of his rebranding of Twirl into the "Seesmic Desktop". Could Seesmic get further in the "fight" than FriendFeed has? I grabbed a quick interview with Loic at SXSW where he announced the first step in his Seesmic Desktop with the launch of Seesmic for Facebook. I haven’t had a chance to see or play with the desktop application and look forward with great anticipation to the demo tonight.

Later this week I will share my thoughts on FriendFeed and how they can start to move ahead and away from the Twitter comparisons.

I’ve been using Friendfeed for a good bit of time now and would consider myself a semi-active user. For the purposes of this post, we will leave my belief that FF is a conversation stealer on the side. Over the last few weeks I’ve started to realize that there are user problems and usability issues with Friendfeed. Let’s remember that at the core, Friendfeed is a message board.

Friendfeed reminds me of Gmail

I guess it makes sense that Friendfeed reminds me of Gmail as the founders of FF created Gmail. I am a Yahoo Mail user and while I have a Gmail account, I do not enjoy using it. Neither application has the organizational tools I believe are necessary to make the tool useful for the average Internet user.

There are no folders in Gmail and there are no forums in Friendfeed. In Gmail you can apparently "label" mail. On Friendfeed you are left with just a rolling list of items. On a typical message board, content is organized by type. For example on the Flyertalk message board, Jetblue content isn’t in the same location as Delta content or content about France. If the same content was posted on Friendfeed, it would all be jumbled together. Content about bacon, photo memes or photos of kids would be in their own forums and I wouldn’t be forced to view them every minute. Sure I could hit the hide button on all of the content but that would take forever and the hide button doesn’t work.

Note: Lists and the ability to remove certain feeds from a user do not address the content categorization issue.

Cross conversations are messy

Here’s a common scenario:

• I post a message on Twitter
• Friendfeed picks up the message and posts it to my Friendfeed stream
• Another person replies on Friendfeed
• They have it set to copy Friendfeed comments back to Twitter
• I reply to the person on Twitter
• It sends my reply back to Friendfeed as a new thread
• repeat cycle

And this is a very, very simple example. Imagine when there are multiple participating in a thread. If I reply only via Twitter, it looks like I am not replying to the person when someone reviews the thread on Friendfeed. And with the ability to send information out/in to other services (Facebook, etc.), it just complicates this issue even further.

Users who don’t participate but are still active

I’ve touched on this subject before. On a message board, when someone posts a question or a comment, they are expecting others to reply. People who reply know that the others in the conversation are actively participating. On Friendfeed, this isn’t the case.

Here’s an example – yesterday popular chart blogger Erick Schonfeld announced his baby’s birth (congrats!). His Twitter post was injected into his stream on Friendfeed. Several people replied to the thread as you can see below. However I still don’t understand why there is any reason to reply to the thread when Erick doesn’t participate on the message board. His last comment was back in November.

This example was just one of a million I see everyday with the same issue. People "talking" with someone who isn’t there – we could call them ghosts. They created an account, may have participated for a bit and are now gone. But their content is still injected into my stream. It’s easy to say that I should just remove the people but that would mean I need to check for "ghosties" every day. Friendfeed should put the accounts of the ghosts into an inactive state if there is no actual activity in a certain period of time (I would open the bidding at three months). This would help to keep the community more engaged and active. Otherwise we are talking to people who don’t exist just waiting for them to reply.

Wrap-up

I think Friendfeed has potential to grow and while I don’t see it as a mainstream tool, they need to figure out how to address the issues listed above if they want to move past the super early adopter set. They should also spend time figuring out why so many users start using the service then drift off into ghost town. Even popular users like Tamar Weinberg are starting to see a slowdown in interaction on the service.

One of the most important things for all startups to realize is that if you want to hit the mainstream with your application, you need to think like the mainstream thinks. So many startups miss this point and stay in their small tech box and wonder why they never get out of it.

Update: Check out Hutch Carpenter’s post on FriendFeed.

When I left home for the first time, mother told me to get a kit together in case of an emergency. A flashlight, small amount of cash, bandages, a couple cans of food, batteries, water, etc. Thankfully I’ve never had to use the kit to-date.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve learned that there’s a new kit on the market that is way more important than any kit previously offered for an emergency. This new kit appears to be named the, "Scoble Emergency Preparedness Kit".

As you can imagine, sites like Twitter and FriendFeed have taken over the way the Web works. Fast Company videoblogger Robert Scoble calls this movement the "realtime web" and apparently it will be the end to all other forms of emergency reporting. While I can’t be sure, it seems like the more people that use this kit, the more likely we are to prevent anything bad from happening anywhere in the world.

Item #1 – Twitter account

Goes without saying but you must have a Twitter account enabled and verified. It’s important to follow and be followed by the Scobleizer account. This is important because in the event of an emergency you can get your news directly to Scoble who will get it out to all Twitters worldwide.

Item #2 – Friendfeed account

This is almost as important as item #1. You want to create an account on Friendfeed, and be on the ready. The moment an emergency hits, you are absolutely to create a room to discuss the emergency and use it as a base of operations. You should also announce the room on both Friendfeed and Twitter. Learn from Scoble’s mistake with regards to US Airways Flight #1549 so you are ready should the need arise.

Item #3 – Smart Phone With Highspeed Mobile Access

It’s important that you get your news, photos and videos into the appropriate units of the realtime web. To do this, you will need a smart phone with a good highspeed mobile plan. The best phone is clearly the Palm Pre for this type of usage but for now you can go with a Nokia N95 or a Samsung Ace. My suggestion is to get more than one battery so when you are out using the phone to document, you will never run out of time. Verify that you can post to items #1 and #2 from your mobile as quickly as possible. Don’t worry if everyone uses your photos and videos without credit or payment – in the real-time web, scraping is welcomed!

Item #4 – Group Twitter Tool

You will want to get a group Twitter tool like CrowdStatus or Tweetdeck. The key here is to watch all of the other Twitter users who are in your emergency group (I am group #10813B) and then as tweets come in related to the emergency, you can retweet them out. The more retweets you can do, the better. And it’s completely ok to retweet a retweet – we call that reretweet.

From what we understand the kit is currently available worldwide. You must have all of the items to make the kit complete. Ordering is, of course, via the Twitter payment system.

The company behind the kit is looking for feedback on items to add for version 2 launching this spring. Leave your thoughts about future additions in the comments as the company is watching for feedback.