Scobleizer - Latest Comments in The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Russ Jackson — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:37:01 -0000

I agree I am using friend feed more and more simply for the interaction that reader is not able to provide. Google reminds me of how Microsoft responded to Google when they introduced paid search ads. Microsoft was slow to respond. The same thing is happening to Google now. They are slow to respond to how social media is changing how we use the internet and interact with everyone. Google needs to integrate reader into gmail then redesign gmail so it incorporates friend feed attributes of commenting, than I think their onto something.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Zenrhe — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:55:25 -0000

Ive just started using it, and im loving it. I use google reader, but for a few months now all ive done is add suscuptions as ive been trawling around, and then seen the amount of stuff in it and run away. Building up the courage to start wading through it.

I find it great linking to posts i see in friend feeed, i now start my morning off with that : ) definately changed my habits.

But looking forward to SocialThing! to come out of private beta.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Bob — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:40:51 -0000

I passed on FriendFeed. I am waiting for SocialThing to let me in. From what I can see, ST does all that FF except that commentary is posted at the source. So, if I respond to your tweet, it is via Twitter, not yet another network, ie FF. That seems the right course.

ST is in limited beta. I wait patiently for the invite.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Ontario Emperor — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:36:05 -0000

My primary access is via a mobile phone web browser, and on that platform my two primary bookmarks are for my Google Reader feeds, and an ego search via TweetScan. (If mobile Twitter has a mobile version of the "Replies" tab, I'd use that instead of TweetScan.) I can *view* FriendFeed on my mobile web browser, but can't really interact.

When I'm on a desktop or laptop, I'll introduce FriendFeed into the mix, and then I can get more interactive.

Re Google Reader speed - I try not to let my unread items count go over 100, I currently subscribe to only three users' shared items (yourself, Chris Brogan, and Dana Franks), and I delete items out of my own Shared Items after about a day or two. For my configuration, speed isn't really a problem at this point.

It's interesting to note that Google Reader and FriendFeed have two different philosophies, since FriendFeed is person-centric and Google Reader treats each feed separately. The disadvantage of FriendFeed is that it forces you to look at everything that I do, including the songs I like; what if you don't care about the songs I like? Conversely, the disadvantage of Google Reader is that if you're interested in the person, you may miss out on a lot of what the person is doing, or in the progression of a person's thought (a Google Reader shared item becomes a tweet, which then becomes a blog post).

What would it take for me to switch my primary reading platform from Google Reader to FriendFeed, MyBlogLog, or something like that? (1) Good mobile interface. (2) Easy maintenance and configuration of feeds. (3) Speed.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Edwin Khodabakchian — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:55:03 -0000

Hi Robert, thank you for picking up the phone yesterday. Is there any chance we could get a copy of your Google Reader OPML to stress our system?
Thanks,
Edwin

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Robert Scoble — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:59:09 -0000

Pete: how many friends do you have? I find that Google Reader's speed is TOTALLY dependent on how many friends you have.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Robert Scoble — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:58:20 -0000

Christopher: you got a point there, but if you want people to engage with you in today's world you gotta be a little over-the-top. Whenever I do a boring headline, even a well-thought-out post, it gets a lot less attention than when I do a little selling in the headline. People are attracted to conflict. "Friendfeed is awesome" will attract 1/100th the audience that "FriendFeed is killing XXXX" will.

I don't like it, but that's the world we live in.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Christopher Coulter — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:35:14 -0000

a non-sensational headline

Well that's also on account of the blogger set not reading posts, just skimming headlines, but, interestingly enough, some people do read non-sensational stuff, just has to be interesting and well-developed, and pitched to certain audiences, namely SME's.

Granted, the usual masses will read Paris or Britney People Mag stories over the NYT, but really, is that what you aspire to be, just another shrill Weekly World News, out for cheap traffic gains? And here I thought you hated the British sensationalist press. ;)

Might want to start including the words "aliens", "bigfoot", "UFOs" and then "Mike Walker reports..." or anything "Patrick Swayze" and never-ending stories about Oprah's (expanding or contracting) weight too...that's worth traffic gold.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Robert Scoble — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:05:53 -0000

Chris: because I know that most people won't read posts with a non-sensational headline. Gotta get your attention on Google Reader or Friendfeed.

But it didn't even take a few months. I saw a FriendFeed killer yesterday that'll be out soon.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Chris — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:00:06 -0000

Why does everything have to be an "X Killer"? Scoble I know that you are an early adopter but it seems like every couple of months we see that Y is the new X Killer? Everything is still very young...I bet in a few months Y will be the new FriendFeed killer in your eyes...

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Pete Steege — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:08:20 -0000

Still happy with Google Reader. Maybe I'm not a power user?

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

RTPeat — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:58:44 -0000

I am using FriendFeed, but I'm running with SocialThing as my homepage - the big problem with FriendFeed is that nearly everybody I want to receive updates for is not on FriendFeed, and the process to set up imaginary friends for all of them is tedious in the extreme.

With SocialThing, I just pointed it at the services and I'm getting updates for all my friends on each service.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Kevin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:51:52 -0000

Google Reader is really very slow... sometimes it takes more than 3-4 minutes to load the feed pages..this is irritating... techmeme feeds are something predefined where as feeds in Google reader is something defined by user, so it's not reasonable to compare both.. they are doing their jobs... i use my own news aggregator for this as well as Google readers too ... friendfeed is something which never got my attention...

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Rodrigo Leme — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:57:37 -0000

FriednFeed has a nice yet simples interface, which appeals to me. Maybe it would change my reading habits, I catch myself following you more than before (with the feeds on Netvibes).

I like the way it puts the activites in chronological order, especially with people who use different tools as complement for each other (you twitter live from an event, than at the end of the day you post a summary of the event, uploads some pics of it at Picasa...).

However, it gets confusing when you're following more than 5 people. I think they should rethink the layout to make it easier to follow.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

nanodoug — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:40:26 -0000

Yes,
I see everything happening now as an incredible headlong...butt first? rush into the FUTURE..YIKES

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Sam — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:29:54 -0000

FriendFeed looks cool, but as with most news readers nowadays, it does seem to suffer from information overflow and a chaotic interface!

I've now started using a brand new service called Planetaki for reading news. It provides a straight forward top-to-bottom list of news where the latest unread posts are clearly presented, no fuss, and no hassle. Its still being developed, so there is no OPML support yet, but I'd expect that amongst many other improvements to be on their way soon.

I currently use it as a complement to Google Reader for the times when I don't have several hours for a full "click, wait, and read" session.

Cheers, sam

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Vero Pepperrell — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:01:35 -0000

I *want* to like FriendFeed, but I hyperventilate when I look at it. It just makes me feel like I'm drowning in information.

Too much stuff, most of which is unimportant (ie. I won't die if I don't catch every tweet from friends, I need to remind myself of that), and the thought of yet another place for discussion just irks me.

If FriendFeed was able to write back into the original social networks, I'd consider using it more, but at the moment, it's read-only and commenting within FF doesn't appeal to me.

Maybe one day, but for now, it's just an "hmm well its nice!" network for me.

I'll leave it up to people like you, Robert, to sell me on it.

Vero
Community Gal at Taptu.com

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

alan p — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:53:53 -0000

I liek it because it pumps stuff to email where I can read it without going online (great for trains). Thank to email's more sophisticated sorting etc it makes it a more effective way of keeping up with high volume people like Mr Scoble ;-)

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

kawika — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:56:20 -0000

Perhaps I've set up FriendFeed incorrectly, but I can't see the utility of it within a feed reader -- where I still live half the day -- when every post headline reads: "Robert Scoble posted two messages on Jaiku" or "Dave Winer posted a message on Twitter" or "You bookmarked a page on del.icio.us." I'd prefer to see the headline or truncated version of the message itself with a simple indication of what kind of message I might expect by clicking to see more. I'm using NetNewsWire to follow the feed. Personally, I'm looking for tools that remove distractions and add clarity and comprehension. FriendFeed might help, and I'm probably missing something, but I'm just not seeing a large leap in productivity here.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Jess Lee — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:55:50 -0000

You're subscribed to 512 people, which probably includes a lot of top tech bloggers whose blogs you're already subscribed to in Google Reader. In that case, yes FriendFeed is kind of like a replacement for Google Reader. But I think that kind of misses out on the whole "Friend" part of FriendFeed. I think of FriendFeed as news through a social filter. Not the "top" stuff from all bloggers/news sites (that's what TechMeme is), but all the stuff that your friends liked. For me, FriendFeed is like Digg + Facebook. I wrote about it at http://www.jessyoko.com/blo...

But in the end I guess FriendFeed is whatever you make of it. It's good that it's flexible enough to be Reader to some people but social Digg to others.

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

smbeebe — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:31:01 -0000

I began using FriendFeed March 1st and never looked back... love it!

I too find that it's refreshingly simple and uncluttered (let's hope it stays that way!) ... no adds ahh!

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Mark J — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:58:34 -0000

So... if I use the one-year waiting rule for Robert Scoble, and he uses the one-year rule for Mr. Winer... will anything still exist by the time I get around to trying it? Life is really hard sometimes!

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

sarahmeyers — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:38:45 -0000

I love TechMeme... FriendFeed is pretty cool I just started an account this week. I don't use google reader that much, but it sure does drive a lot of traffic. Isn't there room for all of them?

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Scabr — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:32:11 -0000

Good alliance: Twitter+FriendFeed+TechMeme

Re: The TechMeme killer or the Google Reader killer?

Alex Hammer — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:25:18 -0000

Friendfeed co-founder Bret Taylor - API weeks, not months away; Duncan Riley criticism "completely valid"
(title is from my blog (above) but link below is to original interview source:
http://www.lastpodcast.net/...