Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: January 5, 2009
Tags : friendfeed
FriendFeed would appear to this year’s Twitter in a bad way, with haters coming out of the woodwork to knock the service. We covered some of a latest round Jan 3, in particular arguments relating to FriendFeed’s traffic. FriendFeed’s founder Paul Buchheit tackled the growth path in an excellent post here.
One recurring meme is that FriendFeed is too busy, and that it will never become popular because they’ve targeted the product at first adopters and techies. Sarah Lacy on a post I missed the other day:
…the company has instead relied on bloggers and tech publications to spread the word. That is myopic and naive. It’s one thing to be a lean startup with no marketing department. It’s another to pretend even the biggest cheerleaders in the Valley ecosystem will be enough to make your company a mainstream product. After all, early adopters tend to treat Web startups like fads. It’s the “real people” who build a sustainable, real business. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook– they all get that and that’s why they don’t cater features to the Valley elite’s power users.
FriendFeed haters, you’re doing it wrong!
First, Twitter and to some extent LinkedIn were both popular in the same circles before they became popular, but that’s beside the point, because the contention is incorrect.
FriendFeed would be one of the least tech focused spaces I spend time in, and the “usual” suspects in the first adopter crowd (with a couple of notable exceptions, like Robert Scoble) have long left the service. What remains is for all intents and purposes is not primarily an aggregator of content, although the service is built around aggregation, but a social network, and a social network that isn’t dominated in terms of participation (the top users by followers list is disingenuous) by first adopters/ techies.
The noise issue is an easy mistake to make, and it’s a mistake I famously made when I first tried the service this time last year. It can look noisy upfront, but so to can a lot of other things, Twitter and feed readers immediately come to mind. It’s once you look into FriendFeed properly you get the value, and you’re able to get the best out of it in a manageable fashion. The introduction of Lists last year for example makes following the people you want extremely easy, even for the non-technically inclined. Add to that filters that are often a click or two to play: for example, I filter out all Twitter entries unless someone else comments on them or likes them, so I maybe only see half of what I’d otherwise be seeing. You can filter ad finitum to match your own likes.
Adolescence
The one thing I will say for FriendFeed is I still feel that it doesn’t know yet what it wants to be. The haters are quick to call noise on the aggregation side, but it’s so much more than that; likewise those making that call haven’t really spent quality time on it or really interacted. There’s nothing richer than someone complaining that no one is commenting or liking their content when they never regularly log in and participate either; you get out of FriendFeed what you put into it. That ecosystem of sharing, likes and discussion is a rich social network, but where will it end up heading?
Buchheit isn’t giving anything away unfortunately, but I can see a couple of paths. Throw some better social networking features on top and you have a full blown social network (profiles in particular come to mind). Add the ability to direct message users and you’ve got a potential Twitter alternative. Improve the aggregation side into something a little more manageable and you’re into full blown feed reader territory. Improve the two way interaction with aggregated services and you have a social network manager.
I don’t know which way it will go, but I know with absolute certainty from my experience on FriendFeed that this isn’t a product that is being pitched to, or exclusively being used in the realm of first adopters and techies. Those people using the service are already spreading the word, and the need for centralized aggregation continues to increase as more people sign up to multiple services. That it could be doing better is something that is not unfair to say, but likewise they’re also leading the space and setting the service for future growth. FriendFeed could well end up being the next Twitter, but in a good way, that is in terms of success.
(img credit: Jesse Stay on Picasa)
Jan 5, 2009
I find Friendfeed a fancy way to pump data into Facebook – which as one of your previous articles commented – provides me with much more meaningful comments and two way interaction than I think Friendfeed ever will.
Friendfeed is going to be an acquisition for someone like Facebook who wants to use the technology to bring in content.
The Friendfeed site evolved into too much of a clique dominated by people with a LOT of free time on their hands. Goodness knows how any of them make money.
Jan 5, 2009
It's always baffling to see seasoned Social Network folks (early adopters?) bitch about “noise” when they're ALL on one of THE noisiest serves out there: Twitter. I am sorry (well no, I am not) but 99% of Tweets are crap. Can I “hide” the @reply dumps that flood my timeline when certain Tweeters jump online? No. But I can on FriendFeed. Don't feel like listening to people, then don't look at @replies? That's a load of crap, since most of the major Tweeters make it a *point* to say: “I read all your replies”. At least on FriendFeed, I can moderate, control, and reply accordingly, individually. If people are overwhelmed by FoAF, just turn it off! Is clicking around really *that* hard? ESPECIALLY for those who are quote un-quote: experts? Seriously, why can't people just STFU? (myself included HA) /end rant. At any rate, thank you Duncan, for eloquently stating what is on my mind. And thank you, for being such an invaluable part of the community. You RULE!
Jan 5, 2009
I m using friendfeed from a week.. it's good if u ask me..
Jan 5, 2009
What noise? Friendfeed has filters. There's no reason why a mainstream user can't just choose to just see their friends flickr picks or youtube videos….
Jan 5, 2009
Agreed – there is something special and magic at FF. Once hooked thats it.
Jan 5, 2009
The filters have really made it easy for me to remove noise. You can remove twitter entries, Friends entries etc which make you see only what you want to see. Nothing is perfect but enough work done by the team to make me believe that lots of improvements are on the way. I am neither a techie or an early adopter but I like the way friendfeed allows me to listen to diverse views on a topic. Also I reads lots of stories first time on friendfeed / twitter
Jan 5, 2009
i've been using friendfeed for about a week or two and i'm definitely impressed with it.
i note in your little list of bookmarkets at the top of the article you don't have a friendfeed one!
Jan 5, 2009
Anthony and sidharth make a good point in noting that you can take actions to reduce the noise, but that may be the problem – FriendFeed starts off with everything turned on, and you have to take an action to turn things off.
The beauty of Louis Gray's first marketing requirement in his marketing requirements document is that you can start off slow and add things when you choose to add him. You'll recall his suggestion: “The Lite version would probably start out with blog postings, Flickr photos, and native FriendFeed entries. The default behavior should be that you would need to 'opt in' to see a service, rather than be forced to opt out or hide every single one of them as FriendFeed adds them.”
My take on the whole thing is that, while it's nice that Paul Buchheit is listening to existing FriendFeed users, he should REALLY be listening to people who never started using FriendFeed, or who started using FriendFeed and dropped it.
Jan 6, 2009
The issue I have concerns about, as with Twitter, is that it really is a great tool, but I wonder how many people will actually travel over to the web site itself to use it. A ton of people utilize friendfeed as a simple aggregator to place widgets on site, and others use it to produce a feed for their readers, but how do you monetize a service that really exists to feed other outlets? I'm no expert, but it's an issue. I really agree that it's a much better tool than it's gotten credit for. I do wish they'd integrate something like a ping.fm where you could post to various and multiple services to be an all-in-one package.
Jan 6, 2009
Ok, lets put some metrics around success/failure, how about 250,000 daily uniques according to Google Trends by this time next year – i think that's fair?