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FriendFeed
Apps: Carter Rabasa
FF2Disqus is a simple script for syncing comments between matching "threads" on Disqus and FriendFeed. Simply enter you credentials, select the appropriate Disqus site and click "Save Info". You have the option copying FF→Disqus, Disqus→FF or Full Sync. Most importantly, you can stop the syncing...
ff2d.png
3 hours ago - ff2disqus.appspot.com - Link
The problem I see is the redundancy if one has addeed Disqus to his feeds on FriendFeed. - lelapin
Good point, but I think if you used something like this you would stop importing your Disqus feed. I've found importing Disqus to be less than satisfying anyway, since the comment entries are completely out of context. - Carter Rabasa
Hey Carter...I love love love the tool...so I wrote about it for Mashable http://mashable.com/2009/01/06... - keep up the good work and keep us posted on updates :) - Jennifer Van Grove
Thanks Jennifer! This is a good time to note that I had some flush my database due to a code change. Please re-enter your information when you get a chance. You'll notice a few minor improvements to the UI. :) - Carter Rabasa
Flickr
Phill Price - Flickr favorites
DSCN0147
DSCN0132
DSCN0133
DSCN0155
Untitled
5 minutes ago - flickr.com - Link
Twitter
Phill Price - Twitter
2 more »
Flickr
Phill Price - Flickr
Beautifully vivid
Beautifully vivid
23 minutes ago - flickr.com - Link
Wakoopa
Kol Tregaskes - Wakoopa
CCleaner
CCleaner
22 hours ago - wakoopa.com - Link
FriendFeed
Phill Price
Beautifully vivid
Beautifully vivid
18 minutes ago - phillprice.com - Link
FriendFeed
Kol Tregaskes
“Who is your best friend? Not names (unless it's someone on FF but how are they related to you: an old school friend, your brother/sister, a work colleague, partner, your dog, your computer ;-)). Do you class more than one person as your best friends?”
1 hour ago - Link
Clearly Mona and I are not best friends atm. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes
22 more comments
For me it's very sad but it would either be my brother or my dog, LOL. :-) - Kol Tregaskes
My wife is my best friend. I know of no-one else who'd put up with my crap :) - Brad Brooks via Nambu
Don't really know if I have a true best friend. - mathew, keynote not lame
We've known each other for 2+ years now. Instant best friends. It brings me Twitter and FF, and we usually want to do the same things at the same time. Love you lappie! - embee
Haha, a lappie is indeed our best companion. - Reuben Thum
my best friend and i met in grade 7, when i insulted the santa that she had made and she punched me in the gut. we can go months without talking, but whenever we do talk or see each other again it's like we never missed a beat. - Trent Olson
My husband and my 3 dogs and my Chia pet. - Silly Jilly
I can't single anyone out. There are a few whom I've known practically all my life. - Rodfather
My SO is my best friend. I really feel that I can pretty much tell him anything. And I have one female best friend from college. - Still Just Katie
hard to pick. i have few friends and there's much i dislike about all of them. the feelings are mutual, but when the chips are down, i'd have to say that we would be there for each other. my best friend would be Jesus. He is just allright with me. He is just allright. He's my friend. He's my friend. I don't know where I may go. I don't know what I may see. He's just all right with me. He's allright. - Morgan Haley
My fianceé, followed by an old friend I grew up with. - xero
interesting question... i think i have and have had more than one... definitely my main and beloved, beloved friend from college is who i consider my best friend, but we don't see each other much and only talk on the phone a few times a year. it's complicated. i considered my (now ex-) husband my best friend, too. - edythe
I haven't had a best friend since my last relationship ended. And prior to him, I hadn't had a best friend since 1993 or so. I favor a few close friendships over a bunch of light ones so I really feel the loss and the absence. - Spidra Webster
What are you talking about, Kol? If I hurt, upset, offended, or you felt attacked in any way - I apologize. :( <--emoticon! I am not any of the above and thought we were having a discussion... :( <---another one! See, I'm learning! :) - Mona N.
Definitely my fiancee. - James Ferguson
@DarlingEvil - Tutivillus Grift
Marty, my best friend in the Army and still my BF, 32 years later. - Jack Carlson
Two best friends, one an ex who I'm slowly becoming estranged with :( and the other a friend I'm just getting back in touch with. I'm kinda a loner though. - Sparky
I have a 3 SoN9ne aka my love, my mom, and my bff from high school Naynay! - Brandy Lea
My ex is my bestfriend and his family is still my family. - Mona N.
my wife - Jim Jannotti
I don't have one. - Yolanda
my wife - Steven Hodson
middle school friend. Its about being totally comfortable talking to that person and instantly connecting, no matter how long you've been out of touch. - Zach Landes
Twitter
Darren Rowse - Twitter
Twitter
Kol Tregaskes - Twitter
Google Reader
Patty Hankins - Google Reader
111th Congress - Orphan Works Futurecast
13 minutes ago - photobusinessforum.blogspot.com - Link
FriendFeed
Robert Scoble
“Nine ways Twitter could make money:”
8 hours ago - Link
1. Look for affiliate revenues - Robert Scoble
107 more comments
2. Exploit the spaces between content - Robert Scoble
3. Adopt a freemium model - Robert Scoble
4. Add Virtual Goods - Robert Scoble
5. Get recurring revenue, er, find a way to charge for subscriptions. - Robert Scoble
6. If you’re going to do advertising, get into creating ads that are viral and interactive. - Robert Scoble
7. Create “frequent tweeting” programs - Robert Scoble
8. Look for support, or tips, from your users. - Robert Scoble
9. Get outside your website. Try to sell schwag. Do events. Etc. - Robert Scoble
Pro features at some point would be nice. An enterprise version could work as well. - Mike Fruchter
Inserting geo-targetted ads on Tweets. - Mike Fruchter
Got any others? - Robert Scoble
what about truncated, collapsable/expandable threading? - Mark
And maybe "Nine ways Friendfeed could make money" hehe - Mark
Twitter should license their technology to companies for intranets. - Michael Gaines
TweetSense. Ad Tweets served BY Twitter, who has the best idea of your Tweet volume and subject matter. http://www.blindfiveyearold.co... Lowest hanging fruit, contextual ads on the Twitter Search page. - AJ Kohn
What about platform support via dev tools? Encourage the ecosystem and make money at the same time? (Apologies, Robert, I replied on Twitter first.) - Tim Beyers
premium blogger services. Cool site integration tools with metrics. - Chris Baskind
10. add premium support for app developers. - Darren Stuart
Considering they have had 100% uptime for a few months, you have to think stability is fine now and they have their engineers beavering away on new features. Of course digg has 80 engineers and hardly ever seems to launch anything :p - Mark
Thanks for this article Robert - Robin
11. sell inhouse or managed solutions to companies for their own uses internally and sell federation CAL's so they can connect the internal solution to the wider twitter network so that specific users can tweet to the public. - alphaxion
Sell the entire background page to brands by the hour/day with some of the area being made available for discounts/offers. (You need something to benefit users too, not just Twitter.) ;-p - mtlb
I'm a little scared of the day all these FREE Social Networking sites CLOSE THE DOOR ON FREE, with all my data inside. - PaulFrankRizzo
good point..what is the answer Robert? - Robin
Paul: I don't think free is going away. But I sure would pay for decent DM features, for instance. Lots of companies would pay for custom skinning features. - Robert Scoble
By following a brand's advertising account you consent to receiving ads from them. Add some profiling info to this and it could be a powerful tool to receive adverts on a users terms. - John Galpin
7.1> Post ad-tweets every half an hour from twitter account, which every twitter user will follow by default (have to follow by default). Make changes to API, so that people can't work around it and dodge this tweet. - | Balu |
Nine ways to get me to close my twitter account. - Chris White
freemium is definitely the way, one flavor or another. you don't want to kill the value of the network - quantity and quality - by driving away elements of it. plus for every paying site, there will always be a new free site up in less time it takes to say "bob's my uncle" - Pascal Bouvier
Create daily reports for similar types of tweets and licence that data to various companies, this will be user generated marketing report. - Shanthala Balagopal
Chris: in that case I hope they do all nine! Just kidding, but, seriously, these sites need to find a way to make some revenues or they'll go away. If you don't want them to find a revenue model you are NOT a good user of these systems. - Robert Scoble
ugh, can we please look at ways for twitter to make money without resorting to adverts? I'm pretty sure there's loads of ways, I've mentioned the one I have been bleeting on about for months now. How about you? Can you come up with ways to make money without going cap in hand to advertisers? - alphaxion
sell email addresses and lists of followers to email advertisers. - Chris White
Phase 1: Twitter Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: Profit! - Alastair Montgomery
alphaxion: most of these are not about advertising. - Robert Scoble
Every local government needs to be on twitter, on their own twitter - and so does every state and federal government, police and emergency service - operated privately and 'independently' from the main twitter stream. - Chris Loft
care to comment about Obama and his 8 million strong email database taken into the Govt side? I am a community organizer and feel that email list belongs to the people - Robin
Robert, I'm not very active on twitter. I don't think my account going away would matter much. - Chris White
Create a premium 'breaking news' service from data mining existing content and sell it to the old media. - Andrew Leyden
apart from 6 ;) Tho I'm addressing the others who are commenting rather than your suggestions. Trying to tease a bit of creative thinking out of people. I think it is a very healthy activity to get people working on ideas for how to make money and excluding the advertisers at the same time. - alphaxion
charge for premium "booty call" service. - Chris White
Chris: friendfeed has the same business model choices ahead of them to make too. - Robert Scoble
Selling my email address is NOT a way to make money. People will lose faith and/or start using phony emails for signups. - Michael Gaines
Alphaxion: #6 is actually about Context Optional, a company that creates very creative, viral ads. If you're going to do ads, that's the way to do it. - Robert Scoble
squeeze the advertisers...users should not have to pay for service ..other then paying to put up with advertisers and regulating and demanding subtlety - Robin
Chris: hah! Actually most of the dating services are going to free models so they'll need to use some of these 9 too. - Robert Scoble
Robin: problem is that advertisers are going away. TechCrunch is hearing that this year could see some sites have 50% fewer ad revenues than before. So, you'll see more sites use these nine business models on you. - Robert Scoble
Robert, I think FF could probably do pretty well with just adsense. - Chris White
point taken - Robin
How many users on FF at this point? - bravestface
charge a-list players to use the service. :D - Chris White
Have Twitter subscribers pick a few products to "endorse", and have ads with their Twitter names attached to them. Then, give those users a discount based on # of clicks. - Michael Gaines
charge 11 cents per tweet - Chris White
Robert: not forgetting that comps can simply sing up with an account and tweet updates from there, which is where inhouse and federation can be handy. New version release? An auto tweet to the public can be done - alphaxion
Chris: adsense is shit. Pays low CPMs. HotorNot makes $10 by selling virtual flowers. I'd love to be able to put a flower on your comments. Or something else. :-) - Robert Scoble
Turn "following" into a Multi-Level Marketing pyramid! - Rick Tuttle
very interesting discussion, robert. thank you! after 2 months of running Magpie (http://be-a-magpie.com), I can resume that #2 from your list works really well for both tweeps (they earn) and advertisers. - Jan Schulz-Hofen
Robert, if you want to pay $10 to put poo on my comments, I'm okay with that. :) - Chris White
the sale of commercial API keys so that software such as starteam or sourceforge could tweet out info automatically based on trigger events to both private and public twitter networks. - alphaxion
How about paying to block people? Not just for me, but for others too. So if I get super pissed at someone, I can spend $1000 blocking a 1000 of their followers. :) - Chris White
:) - Robin
Charge for Groups feature ala Yammer - Sajida Khan
They should Plax-ify Twitter and create a premium service to share and update full contact details between followers. - matt howard
Rick: I thought following already was a multi-level marketing pyramid! You should have seen my son on Sunday when we were on Leo Laporte's show. He told his 2,000 live listeners that they had to follow my son. He got 100 new followers in a couple of minutes. - Robert Scoble
I think you forgot data mining (which links directly into advertising model, and buzz campaign monitoring). In a nutshell they should have a look at us ;-) (heck, we already do #2 and what I mentionned above!) - twitscoop
bravestface: there are about 250,000 registered users of friendfeed (it's a guess based on available data). - Robert Scoble
At least two of those registered users are Robert Scoble. :) - Chris White
cant we think SMS as a strong income model? - Sinan Ata
If you're a company trying sell/advertise via Twitter...I would expect them to pay. That way it doesn't piss off your standard user. The key is charging less than other competing PR firms. - CannonGod
How about a search engine. Soon there will be so many people and companies on Twitter (and similar sites) that people will want to search for those like they do for web sites. It's already frustrating trying to find people now as the current search is very limited. Add to that a similar model to AdWords that could generate money. Would be interested to see what other people think of this idea! - Joanna Butler
A variant on #5 - develop tools for professional/advanced use of twitter and charge for that level of service. Search / stats / archival tools. - Patrick Pushor
Joanna: http://search.twitter.com has tons of places to monetize. I'd pay $5 a month to be listed on top or have a "pro" icon next to my name, for instance. - Robert Scoble
Which social network/media companies do you think will fail first? - Chris White
Chris: there are quite a few that I don't even track. Hi-5, for instance. - Robert Scoble
Emphasis on 'could' - AJ Kohn
AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy were the big three online services in the early 90s. AOL is barely left standing now. I would bet there is a lot of carnage in our future. - Chris White
Robert: I'm with you on that! Once companies are using Twitter, they'd easily see the benefits of a pro listing. I have several clients who'd at least be willing to experiment that. - Joanna Butler
Joanna, kind of like restaurants paying to be higher in citysearch results, right? - Chris White
The key is for Twitter to charge advertisers and not users. For example, they could make a mint by placing sidebar ads (a la FB) and justifying $ rates relative to the most popular people followed - such as you, @LeoLaporte, @guykawasaki, oh, and 'That One.' - Jim Mitchem
@jim they would make orders of magnitudes more by selling their software, support of the software and access to their software instead of limiting themselves so badly with conventional advertising. - alphaxion
alphaxion, couldn't some team reproduce a more robust version of that software for sale? The value of twitter at this point seems to be it's subscribers, not it's software. - Chris White
Rent the logo space. Good ad spot. - Gabe Boisvert
If you tell Toyota or Coke that their constituency is online with Twitter and they're following specific people, or trending topics - you know they'd pay through the nose for those precious few seconds. It's push vs. pull. - Jim Mitchem
I like snorting coke, and my friend Trisha Toyota does too. :) - Chris White
@chris - that's cool, just don't snort coke and drive Trish in a Toyota concurrently. - Jim Mitchem
@chris their software is a product they can sell, the userbase is a compelling feature of that product.. "pay for our commerical API to add twitter support to your product and add the ability of your customers to share their going-ons with the network and stoke demand and interest"... - alphaxion
Chris: exactly. Done right, who wouldn't pay? - Joanna Butler
What's the source of the current online culture of entitlement? Users don't want paid subscriptions nor to suffer ads. The same view that powers online piracy. Shouldn't creative professionals and those who fund them be compensated? If not, there will eventually be a big drop in production. Ps- few companies even use internal IM or digital BBS to share institutional knowledge, I don't see enterprise Twitted as being very lucrative. - Colin Hessel
Colin, I'm not sure it's always entitlement, but that might be part of it. I would probably pay for something (I do for tv and telephone services), but that would place the burden of competition and quality on the service providers. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and as of now, twitter would not be part of my monthly bills. - Chris White
I pay for reliability and accountability - a free service owes me nothing, they can lose my data overnight, be unavailable whenever, disappear. A service I pay for comes with an SLA, some guarantees, etc. Plus, if you don't pay for it, or donate to it, one day it will be gone and you might feel sorry. - Joelle Nebbe
I would pay for additional features = pro account (stability, groups, counter, threads etc in one interface)... but I am just an ordinary user... - Hanna
ok, so maybe Toyota was a bad example http://tinyurl.com/99gkj7 - Jim Mitchem
enterprise version already exists look at http://www.yammer.com - Andrew Mueller
Great ideas Robert. Twitter execs will appreciate it but I still think no business model will exist until they are acquired. - Jeremy Campbell via twhirl
Forgot one ... make people pay to use it but give them emoticons. LOL - Gabe Boisvert
yes, i think acquisition was their business model - but the economic crisis did dash hopes of a gold-plated one so they are thinking about value added services now (through the buy-in of sandy it seems "concierge" style message parsing is one option they are looking at. If you can buy, book, plan, coordinate things semi automatically via twitter there is value in there) - Joelle Nebbe
content partnerships, - imran
Following on from the discussion re FF UI - this discussion shows a BIG issue - I had to expand 95 comments to see Robert's original 9 (and was that the best way to publish the list?) and now I can't compress them! - Mark Warren
Mark: if you refresh the page they will be compressed again. - Robert Scoble
At the very least, show Google Ads on search - Varun Mahajan
I like the idea of selling aspects of the API as a SaaS. Also think they could very easily start charging consumers for Track and SMS. - Clay Newton
They would do well to add the ability to do very robust data mining. You can imagine providing a set of business intelligence dashboards to track and analyze customer sentiment as well as real time trend analysis. - Clay Newton
Virtual goods are a really solid idea as well. Look at what they are doing at Mahalo Answers. Mixes virtual $$ and real $. Twitter could easily implement a number of different levels here. They could also open up the API to provide even greater levels of functionality for app developers, essentially building a tiny-app framework. - Clay Newton
they should sell market info from mining their data, It's a great source of customer data - Tony Jones via twhirl
tony: you then get into the murkey problem of is it their data? By the same standard your ISP could sell their data on your usage. Is it ethical and would your customer base accept it? - alphaxion
I just posted the Social Networking Monetization Golden Goose idea yesterday at http://www.growmap.com/monetiz... - Internet Strategist
@alphaxion - Advertisers will always be in the mix and are inevitable, they should do just in a way that doesn’t interfere with individual tweets/updates. Unless Twitter has an endless supply of financing, they’ll have to go to outside sources, (like subscribers/advertisers). I don’t see Twitter though offering so much value as to make it worth paying for. Not enough features. (ESPN.com has its insider pay service and still runs a ton of ads on the site, so having one rev. stream doesn’t eliminate another.) - mtlb
Someone also mentioned a pay service for exclusive/breaking news on Twitter. First, I have Drudge for breaking news, but more importantly, part of the appeal of Twitter is that people like to feel they broke the news themselves. Why should Twitter or a select few decide what's breaking and what’s not and exclude the rest of the users from contributing to that? - mtlb
I would pay good money for the ability to punch people over the internet. - stretta
Facebook
Mat - Facebook
“Mat is not cold. That is because he is a mammal, though he doesn't want to brag about it.”
45 minutes ago - Link
FriendFeed
Kol Tregaskes
“Has anyone been on any 'adventure' holidays? What were your experiences?”
2 hours ago - Link
Hum....I'm not sure if what I describe as an adventure holiday is the same as what you are asking. - Still Just Katie
5 more comments
Not packaged holidays, for instance. :-) - Kol Tregaskes
Like backpacking on your own terms? - Still Just Katie
I was going to say yes, but my vacation fell into the packaged one. I did Contiki through New Zealand in 2003. - Still Just Katie
I went to Hawaii for Xmas and had a really nice time - Photo Larry
i used to want to be an adventure tour guide. it was a dream of mine until i saw what the insurance would have cost me...*sigh* - Morgan Haley
Adventure "holidays" might be the same as "drunk" holidays? if that's the case I have some of them: The Sonora desert and Puerto Vallarta.... Man! I miss those days! But now I grow up :) - George The Writer
My husband and I are planning our honeymoon trip to Alaska - somewhat adventurous... float planes, remote places, potential bears. I have a friend at work who climbed Kilimanjaro and went to New Zealand for some X-treme fun and he had a blast. Both great trips. - JoEllen
Twitter
Darren Rowse - Twitter
Blog
michael arrington - TechCrunch
The Price Of Going DRM-Free: Apple’s Hidden $1.8 Billion Music Tax
34 minutes ago - techcrunch.com - Link
FriendFeed
The Apple Room: Amani
“What is the best app to use on your Macbook (or MacBook pro) to record via the camera already installed?”
33 minutes ago - Link
I use quicktime pro or photo booth - Dustin Sallings
Twitter
Ryan Brenizer - Twitter
Custom RSS/Atom
Flickr Photography: Uploads from andie.smith
“permit no. 3”
permit no. 3
1 hour ago - Link
andie.smith posted a photo: October 2, 2008 -Seligman, AZ, USA --Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In was always known as a place of practical jokes.- PHOTO BY ANDIE SMITH This photo is available for publication. Please contact me via Flickr Mail or at www.eight18photography.com All my photographs are copyright protected and are not allowed to be used in any manner without my consent. If you wish to use my photos for ANYTHING, please plan on paying me for my work. They are for sale on Photoshelter. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. - Kol Tregaskes
Custom RSS/Atom
Flickr Photography: Uploads from bingleyman2
“Ingleborough”
Ingleborough
1 hour ago - Link
bingleyman2 posted a photo: Not many more to go...honest. - Kol Tregaskes
Custom RSS/Atom
Flickr Photography: Uploads from 96dpi
“33 / Winter sky”
33 / Winter sky
1 hour ago - Link
96dpi posted a photo: Unterwegs mit FeNe - Kol Tregaskes
FriendFeed
Robert Scoble
Interesting blog about what's wrong with friendfeed's interface
Interesting blog about what's wrong with friendfeed's interface
7 hours ago - bokardo.com - Link
Joshua Porter does an awesome job here of explaining what's wrong with friendfeed's UI. - Robert Scoble via Bookmarklet
98 more comments
I disagree with almost every one of those suggestions. [edit] I'd prefer more, not less on the page. This person doesn't use hide much I guess. Likes allow me to find other people, white space is always appreciated and comments are value added. Again, don't like a title, hide it. It's just not that hard. - AJ Kohn
AJ: why? - Robert Scoble
Friends of friends represent huge potential value. I think getting rid of that mechanic would be a big mistake. Placing less emphasis on it than primary relationships makes sense. - Patrick Pushor
The interface I never knew I wanted - but I totally do. Some really great points in there. - Shawn Farner
+1 AJ. The first suggestion might be valid but others... no, no and no. - Tapio Kulmala
@Robert: I'd be okay with the ability to select how many items showed up on the page (default to 5 for newbies), but forcing it at 5. No thanks. I prefer scrolling to clicking by page, particularly with the speed in which things change on FF. White space is necessary to ensure you CAN scan the page. And comments is where the gold is. This interface would essentially reduce it to a one line Title interface, right? - AJ Kohn
+1 AJ The reason more lines are shown as well as people you don't "know" is to help you discover more people, more feeds, and more content. - Lindsey in Love
GreaseMonkey does have a script that allows you to filter by content, so I think that is a great idea to already have it in FF. However, the other three opinions, I don't agree with, like the others. You don't care if someone you don't know liked something? The great thing about "Like" is that people that is subscribed to this person can view your content, so you get more exposure. Why wouldn't you want this? - Shevonne Polastre
I'm all for compressing more content into the scarce vertical space. I run FF in Firefox using almost all of the 1200 vertical pixels of my monitor, and it's still not enough. But there is a difference between times when you want discovery and times when you want efficiency, I'd find ways to improve the set up for both MOs. - Logical Extremes
If they had everything in a single line, the vertical scrolling would be ridiculous. Maybe FF can have an option for people to hide comments, and click a link to show them, if they prefer. Maybe something similar to the WP FriendFeed plugin. - Shevonne Polastre
As somebody in the article comments already posted, you can already turn off friend of friend opinions. Maybe that option needs to be easier to find but I agree with all, keep it on by default. - Patrick Pushor
It appears he wants to use FF primarily as a news/info feed from select people with no commentary. I thought part of the allure off FF was the social commentary. And it always annoys me when people are so dismissive about seeing stuff from people other than the ones they've personally selected. Seems rather snooty. - saeba
I do disagree on de-emphasizing the people though, it is FriendFeed after all. I like to be able to easily see who made the post, via what service, the title, and a quick scan of the metadata. - Logical Extremes
@saeba Bang on. FF is all about the commentary. Any competing service can build an aggregator. - Patrick Pushor
saeba - snooty? I see it as a headache bypass. There are some people that are a huge pain in the head to read on a regular basis and are out there posting as much as possible. I personally do not want to subject my head to that. Snooty, not at all. - Susanne "Renee" Bullo
We have to think about new users. I've read enough comments about people feeling overwhelmed that friend of friend should be diabled by default... - Jason Kaneshiro
Most of the things he doesn't like are things that make FF good. For example, showing a few comments can generate interest in the entry even if the title is uninteresting. Finding new people partially comes from being able to see the full list of who liked the entry. I have to agree with the weighting problem though, I complained about that the first week. - xero
Interesting observations, although I don't feel there's any major problems with the FriendFeed UI. Although that's just my 2p. - Tyson Key
@TK There are definitely problems with the UI. As a web savvy individual the first time I experienced FF I didn't get it. That shouldn't be. However, I am not versed enough in UI design to suggest much else. - Patrick Pushor
"Randomness helps us discover. It can create interest. It can lead to intent." http://friendfeed.com/e/50ed62... - AJ Kohn
@Susanne Isn't that what hide is for? - saeba
saeba - I was just commenting on the "snooty" part. I'm very low on the "read me I'm popular" end of things and yet I find it necessary to hide a lot of Friends of stuff. Does it make me snooty? Hardly. Makes me headache free :D But, yes, that's what hide is for. - Susanne "Renee" Bullo
This from a guy that seemingly has never commented on any post other than his own and has made no (or few) direct FF posts. I somehow think he is missing something in the credibility department. - Brian Sullivan
site is down. I didn't do it. - Josh Haley
Went to read post and got this message "Error establishing a database connection". Worked when pressing Gray's links below. - Chris Herbert
Sure, FF could (and will) make some improvements, but it's a pretty darn good UI as it is. I was slow to use Twitter and still don't that much. I never used traditional social sites that much, but "got" FF right away. Compared to any other social aggregation and discussion service, the FF UI is an order of magnitude better. - Logical Extremes
Every suggestion is bunk -- this is clearly not a serious user. Friend names *should* be the top item (this is, ahem, friend-feed). I do care who likes what -- I get to know people that way. A single line entry would be Google Reader -- thanks, I already have that option. Finally, if a title doesn't intrigue me, very often the comments do. +1 saeba, +1 xero - Christopher Galtenberg
I really like the fact that FF shows you who liked what. If pure scannability is what you are after then just read FF from an RSS reader. - barce
I have to say that I agree with a lot of what's already been said here about that article sounding like it came from someone that's not spent too much time in FF. I'll be honest and say that I have "friend of friend" off, and that it took me a while to realize how to do that. I think FF is great and a powerhouse of information if you know how to use it. Lets not remove that power to make it easier for new users - but instead maybe focus on better documentation and tutorials on how to do things in FF. Some more power in terms of the ability to hide certain things by default wouldn't hurt ether - but I don't think that choice should be forced on new users. - Matthew J Hendrickse
What barce said +1. Scanability is *not* the point of the main page. Social engagement is. - Christopher Galtenberg
OK, link works now, and now I can comment on it. Mr. Porter, FriendFeed is not a feed reader. It allows the import of a bunch of feeds and could be used that way, but as you point out, the interface is not designed with that in mind foremost. The killer app of FriendFeed is that it is a centralized, customizable place to have conversations about almost any content. Trying to make FriendFeed like Google Reader (my assumption based on your post) will change the dynamic of what I believe is this killer app. - Josh Haley
There are two major problems with Implementing his suggestions 1. Cluttered screen. 2. Increased need for mouse clicks to get to content. It should be go through serious testing before knowing which approach will give a better experience. - Amit Morson
While I don't care for his suggestions personally, when I couple his ideas with Louis Gray's "Lite" idea, I think he's really on to something. If you want to go the "Lite" route, keep the initial interface as simple as possible, then let the user discover all of the features of the FriendFeed we know and love. Oh, you can see who liked this item? And you can see comments? And you can see things from friends of friends? Joshua is NOT using FriendFeed incorrectly; he's using it the way he wants to use it. - Ontario Emperor
title here should read: "Uninteresting blog about what's right with friendfeed's interface". Sorry, Robert stop pumping links simply because you were mentioned in it. AJ nailed it in the second comment. Up next for this thread, what the author of this blog should learn to do on FF. HIDE. - Carlos Ayala
This would be a cool little tweak - make links open in a 'new' tab. - Jim Mitchem
I've solved most of the problems Joshua mentions by processing Friendfeed friend, room, list and search feeds through Google Reader. And I can absolutely guaranteee you that, using the GR interface, I can run circles around anyone using the FF interface in terms of grokking all the new FF activity in the areas of greatest interest to me (or any areas). Lightning-fast scanning and filtering. I can easily see all new posts in my favorite feeds as simple lists, and zoom in on items of interest. Generally I focus on the top 10% of items in my subscribed feeds. Locating that top 10% quickly is the trick, and GR provides the solution. - Sean McBride
Carlos, let's say that you put me behind the wheel of a NASCAR race car. Before I can drive the thing, I have to make a number of changes to the car to simplify it - "hide" this control, "hide" that control, etc. For newbie car drivers like me, why not come up with a model that's like a Honda Accord? If people insist that I'm using the NASCAR car incorrectly, then I'm not going to drive it at all - which is why more people use Twitter than FriendFeed. The firehose is not for everyone. - Ontario Emperor
Sean, could you post a screenshot of your FriendFeed/GReader-based scanning solution? - Ontario Emperor
OE makes a good point and an good analogy. How many of us circle the block in our cars for days, stopping every other time around to change the suspension settings? - Mark VandenBerg
From a user interface standpoint, hiding items strikes me as extremely wrong. Not smart. Not efficient. I want to see the information that is most valuable to me with the least possible effort. - Sean McBride
I wouldn't want a bunch of line items as if I'm reading email. I like seeing the comments and who has liked it. That is what makes me give an item with maybe a boring title another chance. One thing I would like is if my or my friends comments stood out a little better. - Yolanda
Ontario: a single screenshot wouldn't capture my Google Reader view on Friendfeed. Anyone here can try this simple experiment: create a Friendfeed folder in GR, and add a few FF friend, room, list and search feeds. Be sure to include feeds for FriendFeedLinks, FFholic Most Discussed and Best of Day. You'll be able to rip through hundreds of items with the greatest of speed and efficiency, dismissing large collections of old/read/scanned items with a single click on "Mark all as read." I haven't any idea how people are able to use Friendfeed productively from the FF interface. I've tried, and I can't, and I am a speed reader. - Sean McBride
Sean, assuming the interface isn't omniscient, wouldn't the bare-bones case require you to add sources of information? And isn't that something users would be much less likely to do than Hide? I think the hide-based paradigm, while counter-intuitive, is more likely to lead to the success which is having just the right amount of feeds. - Christopher Galtenberg
+1 Barce - yeah if the guy wants an RSS-feed pure list of his friends' content, just pull his feed it into Google Reader via RSS... then he can scan headlines all he wants, and he doesn't have to care about likes or comments... - Nathan Chase
Christopher - you are correct that it takes a bit of effort to add FF feeds to GR, and probably requires more skill with feed management than most net users possess. We need a slick interface to expedite the process. But try this: go to Best of Day http://friendfeed.com/summary?... and click on the RSS icon in the address bar. If you are already a GR user, you will be served up a subscription screen to add the feed to GR. You will then need to add the feed to your GR Friendfeed folder manually. I especially the appreciate the ability to order my Friendfeed feeds in GR in any priority I choose. GR gives me a bird's-eye view on all the FF activity that interests me, with powerful navigational tools. - Sean McBride
I discovered this post through GR, by the way. - Sean McBride
I also use a Twitter folder in FF to cut through all the noise. From my bird's-eye view, FF and Twitter are just bundles of easily manipulable feeds. - Sean McBride
Sean, that's actually a pretty brilliant idea, cause I always forget to check the "best of the day", so it would make for a good "news feed" to check, since most of the posts are important news/articles, or at the very least, important memes/social conversations among FF users - Nathan Chase
Nathan: in my FF folder in GR I place FriendFeedLinks in the number one slot; FFholic Most Discussed in the second slot; and Best of Day in the third slot. It takes me less than five minutes a day to identify the most important new posts on FF as a whole. If I were unable to create this interface, I wouldn't bother using FF at all -- it would be a serious waste of time. - Sean McBride
Sean: I'm subscribing to you based purely on my respect for your l33t news-reading skillz - Nathan Chase
Wait a sec. Only 5 entries on the page? No way. I want more than now. I haven't got a problem with long lists. >100 entries on a page would be cool for me. I hate switching pages. - Ryo
More: I find the posts of certain FF users to be exceptionally valuable, like Anthony Citrano, Meryn Stoll, Paul Buchheit and Louis Gray. From my GR view, I can quickly see that user X has posted *number new posts. I can then click on a user's feed, scan the headings of all their new posts, and zoom in on the posts that strike me as most interesting. Viewing all their items as a single list/group gives me a much better conceptual understanding of their posts, without wading through torrents of noise. - Sean McBride
More: my FF and Twitter folders in GR are nicely integrated with many other folders, all of which are prioritized by importance. I manage all these feeds under a single interface. My lead folder is Top 10 Feeds, and includes BreakingNewsOn, CNET News, FriendFeedLinks, Lifehacker, NYT - Breaking News, NYT - Technology, Slashdot, Yahoo! News: Mideast Conflict, Yahoo! News: Technology and Yahoo! News: Top Stories. - Sean McBride
Sean - I'll bet your desk is clean too. - Scott Maentz
Nathan - I've been strongly interested in optimizing my news-reading flow for several years now. This current setup that I've described is the best method for news reading I've discovered to date. - Sean McBride
The only thing I would say about your system Sean is that you have to wait a while for Twitter and FF to generate their RSS and that can be annoying or too late in some cases to catch serious happenings. Just a thought. - Gabe Boisvert
Scott - minimizing to the max, getting rid of clutter, streamlining, more bang for the buck, etc. is almost a religion for me. :) That is why I fell in love with the Google aesthetic from the first week that Google was released to the world. - Sean McBride
Gabe - if I am in the middle of a hot discussion on FF, I simply click on http://friendfeed.com/seanmcbr... to read and respond to the latest comments in near real time. But 95% of the really valuable posts on FF are captured in GR soon enough. - Sean McBride
Sean - More power to you! I also love Google products and use them as exclusively as possible. - Scott Maentz
I neglected to mention a key point: ALL the items of interest in ALL my feeds (including Friendfeed and Twitter) are easily searchable and retrievable from a single user interface: Google Reader. And if you star items of interest as you scan and read them, the search space is significantly narrowed. And I can forward any of these items as email, and tag them. What's not to like? - Sean McBride
True but it is not realtime ... it is RSS. That is about the only negative I see. - Gabe Boisvert
For all people who are noting that Google Reader items do not appear in realtime, it should be noted that most FriendFeed shares don't make it to the FriendFeed UI in realtime either. So it doesn't sound like you're losing much by using Google Reader as your FriendFeed interface. I'll experiment with Sean's system a bit and see what I think about it. - Ontario Emperor
It can take up-to 3 hours for FriendFeed to push out its RSS ... so ummm ... - Gabe Boisvert
I would hate that interface. I don't agree with any of it. I love FoaF and if I don't want stuff from a certain user, I hide them. If I don't want a service showing up, I hide it. - Mattie Kenny
The basic Friendfeed user interface is like logrolling or birling: I'll wager that most new users lose their balance quickly and fall off the log. I am a speed reader, and can absorb huge flows of text easily, but I can't begin to get a handle on the FF flow from the main page -- it's mostly random chaos. Surely this interface issue will continue to be a major obstacle to achieving mainstream acceptance for Friendfeed. You might say, narrow your subscription list. But the most valuable posts are scattered among many users. - Sean McBride
Gabe - check out the FriendFeedLinks feed http://friendfeedlinks.com/ Is it really important to see these items in real time? They are valuable to me within 24 hours or a week. The more one is distracted by trivial posts, the less one has time to focus on important posts. - Sean McBride
I know this is a plug for my own code, but https://launchpad.net/myff (demo at can be seen in the iframe on the right at http://zzzen.jottit.com) tries to address such problems. Not exactly the *same* problems [and it shows my discussion stream (comments+likes) and not my "what's new" stream], but the code is there, and it's easy to add featutres. Feel free to use this with your own user name (e.g. http://myff.zzzen.webfactional...) as an iframe. - ĎÚβĨŐÚŚ Dod
Ontario - try this experiment: add the feeds for your five favorite friends to a Google Reader Friendfeed folder. I think you will find that you will be able to track their new posts with much greater speed and ease than from Friendfeed. One is not equally interested in all the posts from one's favorite friends: GR makes it possible to find the most interesting posts with a quick scan down the list. - Sean McBride
Dod: intriguing FF interface. But no features for starring, tagging, sharing, emailing, prioritizing and searching. Yes? No? - Sean McBride
Some interesting comments but I don't agree with all. E.g. it's sometimes interesting to see who has "liked" a post as that might be someone I want to follow. However I do think there should be more options for hiding or compressing content as you choose - Mark Warren