Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Onur Kabadayı — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:58:54 -0000

Hi,

I agree with most of your points Robert. Actually, I've made an analysis about FriendFeed in my blog, and quoted you a bunch of times: "Looking at FriendFeed’s today, envisioning a better future". If you want to check it out:

http://thebluebear.com/blog...

Cheers,

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Marcy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:41:58 -0000

True that FF has great features, but maybe it's not growing as fast because there's not enough talk about it. Let's face it, Twitter is all over the news with all the celebrities following each other and stuff - it makes everyone want it. If FF finds a way to do advertising this way, I'm sure we will see more growth.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

DJTwittr — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:50:20 -0000

Amen, i am a memeber of freindfeed, and it took me like a month to figure out that it wasn't worth the time, if you want true positive results, design something yourself :)

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

agus — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:17:04 -0000

Facebook can be better than friendster....

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Prokofy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:18:33 -0000

I keep trying to remind myself to go to FriendFeed and use it, and keep forgetting.

One key reason I dislike FriendFeed is because you can delete my comments to your threads there, whereas you can't do that to me on Twitter. I'm a big believer in keeping debates open and critical and not muting dissent.

The pile-ups on FF are hard for some to take, and mobby and turn against some people. That makes Arrington hate them because they turn on him. But...that's not my problem with the pile-ups on FF. The problem with pile-ups on FF is that they are too comformist, and people will not think for themselves once they aggregate under your strong personality like magnetic filings. That doesn't happen on Twitter where you are diluted.

The groups don't make sense to me on FF, other stuff is also too wonky. Twitter is dirt simple. I keep coming back to it.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

AlexSchleber — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:24:43 -0000

You point is well taken, AND shows the way that FriendFeed can win:

1) Make a few addtl. changes to become a robust Twitter client (needs Reply and RT links/buttons, as well as easy import of all Twitter "following" accounts not yet on FF as Imaginary Friends - or some other way if that were too resource intensive).

2) Become the de facto feed reader better than Google Reader by adding a "Subscribe to this" bookmarklet and similar button on items within FriendFeed that link to an RSS'able source. These subscriptions (to sources rather than users) could be managed either as Imaginary Friends, or as "Groups/Rooms" managed by FF admin, asf.

3) Find a way to import the Facebook Home page (friends' updates), and you then have a unified inbound feed with everything important going on (say under "Favorites").

I have been doing something close to this, minus the FB import, for a while now manually, and it works, it's just too much work to set up currently for most people to do it.

Once you combine the 3 top Web 2.0 uses this way, it becomes a lot more compelling. That's what FF needs, a compelling use case that is easy to set up and easily DEMONSTRATED. Loic just came out with the Seesmic Web-based Twitter client, FF is not that far off at all from offering that and more.

The infrastructure is there, now all it needs is a few tweaks.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

rickbakas — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:14:14 -0000

I also like that FriendFeed isn't trying to control how much influence someone can have. Twitter has been implementing some interesting new updates that take away from some of the early icons such as the AlohaArleen's, Zaibatsu's and Jason_Pollock's of the world.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

mico — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:31:14 -0000

Yes, me too. Reason: I would not read that in my real time.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

mico — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:11:56 -0000

What is special in FF is the discussion, the problem in FF is the discussion.
Most of the times I have found that I do not have the time to follow those discussions and that they add little to my day, while Twitter sometimes finds me real time news and Facebook to me is a place to connect with real friends in real life.
Scoble is the only one I have seen that deliberately turns posts into an istant chat room. The value of which might be good if you are researching the same argument. Most of the times I find Scoble's megathreads useful.
I would also have found FF more useful if it was much easier to add, remove and categorize people. One addition might go a long way and one is always experimenting with follows and groups. I would use FF to find interesting people that I did not follow on twitter in the discussion on someone else's topic.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Dawn — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:30:51 -0000

No, the reason FF is flat is because they missed the window of opportunity, as I explained back in April. http://dawnsplan.wordpress....

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Andrew J Scott — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:44:28 -0000

Excellent article; noise IMHO is the biggest problem with FriendFeed; for the average, impatient, bombarded user for whom FriendFeed is not a significant business tool, the best way they could differenciate is finding a clever/intelligent way to prioritise content and give context too it.

Personally, I couldnt care less about a cat, however cute a photo it is - that would be a great example for me of noise. Twitter,btw, suffers the same problem but as a platform - apart from its own issue of monetisation - is better placed to have someone else solve that noise/filtering problem for it. FriendFeed, could perhaps, be that problem solver.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

krishnamoorthy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:25:40 -0000

Rated up your comment. That's very true!

I hate twitter mainly for the lack of features to manage my tweets and friends. I do not want to use seismic, Tweetdeck to handle all that. I want everything in one place. Friendfeed does that. What is the need for any other client.

Anyway, better mobile interface is a must for FF.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

sachxn — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:19:31 -0000

I completely agree with dbarefoot about friendfeed and its aggregation policies....

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

steven — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:31:09 -0000

Give it some time!

Using Twitter to make cash? Easy check out http://bit.ly/Twittercash

How I got $12,000 in 30 Days and a steady $5,000 a month income - http://earncashfromgoogle.c...

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Howard Greenstein — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:43:12 -0000

Hey, Robert,
have you done a screencast about how you use Friend Feed? I'd love to see some of the things I'm missing.

--Howard

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

lucaswyrsch — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:44:42 -0000

Dear Robert,

Everything depends on TIMING. It's always a problem of the 天时地利人合 (tianshi dili renhe) or meet the right person (megaconnectors like you) at the right time (when the focus will come to social media sites like SocialMedian and FriendFeed) on the right place (where the money flow for social median sites will be most important)!

It's all about LUCK, where L stands for Location (Silicon Valley is an optimal location) U for Understanding (you learn it through analysis but it's more a gift than a science), C for Connections (the art of networking, the attraction for FriendFeed) and K for Knowledge (We lived in a OK (Only Knowledge) society that has brought us KO, through the globale financial crisis, a strong systemic risk factor).

Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You! Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, introduces an engaging lesson in business forecasting from Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You, by Spyros Makridakis, Robin Hogarth, and Anil Gaba.

Reed both books and try to understand that it's all about LUCK and that FriendFeed's LUCK still is on it's way to come!

FriendFeed still is a bit to early to be a mainstream demand, as you mentioned it correctly in your blog!

I'm convinced in one or two years, a strong aggregator like FriendFeed will be on high demand and it then even may outperform Twitter and/or Facebook, but it all depends on LUCK, it all depends on the 天时地利人合 (tianshi dili renhe)!

Just be open, random and supportive!

Best

Lucas

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

moon — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:38:19 -0000

Robert how many times have I left the comment that most people don't produce Feeds?

A few photos uploaded to Flickr, a YouTube video and a couple of Tweets doesn't get much attention on FriendFeed.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

Laurie Voss — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:07:20 -0000

I would move "Mobile" all the way up to #1. Mobile is the primary way I consume both twitter and facebook.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

ShawnaB — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:57:35 -0000

Well said, Robert I like Friendfeed as you can interact better with individuals(for now) where on Twitter, it sometimes goes so fast you miss a lot. I like both services in their own way.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

kylec — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:19:52 -0000

finally. nice to see someone honest about friendfeed's problems. in my mind, #7 is the biggest problem they're facing. they've built a product that doesn't really map very well to people's natural behavior on the web. sure, it appeals to the scoble's and the arringtons of the world, but normal people have no need for it.

a couple of other problems i see with it: terrible name(and logo), that really is too geeky. twitter and to a lesser degree facebook both have friendly brandable names, whereas just saying friendfeed just sounds geeky and wouldn't appeal to normal folks.

other than that, i agree with points #1 and #3, but they're really a subset of number #7. that all said, as a product designer, it would be an interesting exercise to try and make friendfeed appeal to a wider audience.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

jaredplittle — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:20:58 -0000

Sounds like I might have to start spending some more time on friend feed just started using it but I do like it better then twitter.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

shiny20 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:00:39 -0000

friendFeed meet twitter, facebook, fastcompany.tv, kyte, qik, ustream, smartsheet, ...

right on schedule. fanboy scooby loves them, then gets bored and dumps them.

future shiny websites: don't believe the hype, don't believe the bored critiques.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

911Truth — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:22:58 -0000

valid points - 1. expose better advanced/search capabilities, and I'd say keyboard shortcuts also. This is valid also for Google.com ... Such an essential "I'm intelligent" tool as keyboard shortcuts, and only FF has it (not tw or fb) .. but ff is slow ("the team is small") to add more.

2. option to turn off the noise - bumping up of updated conversations - is needed, yes

3. brands, or more profile customization - why not to allow some customization

Now, FF needs to boost the blogging capability - break the dummy 140 choke limit - with an elegant option for more ...

Other than that, Friendfeed does have a powerful mix of capabilities hardly matched somewhere else.

SO, people just need to discover, to learn, what Friendfeed offers, and is all about, ..... but this Friendfeed also is not making any easier . ... :]
http://friendfeed.com/petrb... - http://friendfeed.com/ffnew...

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

twitrounds — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:34:52 -0000

I think Twitter just has so much to offer right now. It's the fact that you see it being used everywhere. From TV to Radio Stations to different Websites. I'm not sure if FriendFeed would stand a chance next to it. I'm actually surprised that Twitter only grew by 16%. Given the amount of press it gets, I'd expect it to continue it's 40-50% growth trend.

Re: Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat

paramendra — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:19:44 -0000

I have a FriendFeed account, but I don't use it. But I must say your enthusiasm is infectious. Maybe some day.