Anthony, a notification when a comment is made on a thread I'm following would be an excellent feature. I often participate in discussions during lunch and then have to leave to get back to work. I often return later in the evening to see what has transpired. If I got a notification of activity, I might be able to take a few moments during the day to add to the discussion. - Jeff P. Henderson

Also threaded comments, etc. would be nice, but I'm really pushin' it. ;) - Anthony Citrano

guilty as charged. it's hard to keep up sometimes, at least for me. - grant fox

What we're all looking for is a super-smooth conversation platform. Conversations triggered by status updates / blog posts (or any of the other types FF can import) and then with threading. Matt Mullenweg (of one of the other guys from Wordpress/Automattic) has admitted that the flat commenting model of blogs isn't up to the times anymore. FF could take a lesson from that. Still, commenting on FF is more convenient than commenting on blogs. It has superior UI responsiveness. It's almost real-time. - Meryn Stol

... I wish it'd be like that all across the web. - Meryn Stol

I agree of course that notification would be handy. In part FF does this by moving items which are commented on upwards in the "stream", but this is not enough in some cases. - Meryn Stol

This happens in every group conversation tool I have ever used -- usenet, web forums, mailing lists. Is this a problem with the tool or the individual? - Brian Sullivan

There's plenty of other conversation tools on the web. What you're all proposing would be turning down the pressure/speed of my firehose, which would be a deal breaker. You can see if topics have restarted by looking at your Me/Comments filter and scrolling back to the last time you checked. - Matthew DeVries

Couldn't you just go to your comments page and check? - Morton Fox

@Morton: as with many things: people could, people don't. - Anthony Citrano

FF could create a feed of activity on items you've published, commented on, or liked (users could select these in account settings) and you could hook that up to readers, notify.me, etc. That's more FF-style, right? - Bryan Landers

@Meryn: exactly. A couple years ago I suggested a kind of hybrid between a news site, a forum site, and a blogging site, but never followed through. I think for pure conversation, things like vBulletin come closest to getting it right. Imagine if each shared FriendFeed item had the ability to spawn a full-featured vBulletin thread. - Anthony Citrano

Anthony, yes, but a forum - that is the information architecture of a forum - doesn't scale (in social terms). For that the "blogging" model - subscribing to feeds- has proved superior. Indeed there's much to learn from previous conversation platforms. As you may know, IntenseDebate has created a plugin system which may help us to get there. They already built a smileys plugin. Graphical smileys are great. :) - Meryn Stol

I hope for LOTS of cross-pollination. Those folks at FF hq's should get off their butts real quick. :P - Meryn Stol

I said this a long long time ago: FF should hire like crazy. Investors should put lots of money in this. They have the right DNA... It's only a matter of features to become the absolute superior conversation platform. In terms of speed and convenience, it already is. - Meryn Stol

I see this as unnecessary so agree with what matthew and morton already said, and since recently changed threads constantly float to the top of comment page i've always found it easy to keep up - mike "glemak" dunn

One solution: A "New Comments" tab on one's FF home page, with total number of new comments which have followed your last comments in various threads displayed in parentheses. Click on the tab to see in default view ONLY new comments, in reverse chronological order. One click to mark all as read, or automatically mark as read when opening tab. Option to receive new comments in an RSS feed or as email. - Sean McBride

The problem I have with threaded comments as we currently know them is losing sense of place in deep indention. Case in point: Run-away reddit combo breaker threads, or Usenet style 'Next in thread' which painful in its own way. Slashdot's blend is the least of the evils, but still feels uneven. A better UI/spacial approach need to arise before single level simplicity can be discarded out of hand. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way. - Micah Wittman

There's greasemonkey scripts that correct for this & Michah's, but I've found FF doesn't even support those; once enabled it goes bitch-ass wonky. - sofarsoShawn

Michah, you actually raise a very good point. Comment threading (esp with the indenting) is indeed not the end-all be-all... I wish I'd be more fluent with AJAX, and DHTML in general... I bet that one could think up really flexible presentation styles for this. - Meryn Stol

Yeah, I do this as well. Just a simple email when someone replies or a digest email with all the replies from a certain day would be a huge help in my mind. Kwippy.com sends me an email with each new reply and that is what keeps me going back there. - thepete

I agree with the 'drive by' concern but am absolutely against the "threaded" extension; I fear that if anything would lead to an oubreak of 'drive by' disruption of conversation flow, this could be likened to the building of exit ramps from the main stream highway .... we have Rooms We have topics .... Just say no to off ramps! - David HC Soul

thepete + 1 - Mayank Dhingra

ps if the thought deserves it's own side discussion we also have hyper transport to a different topic via link ... that it is not used very frequently, I argue, is evidence that in most cases people in most conversations implictly reject "off ramps" as a general purpose (group) conversational construct in this mileu at least - David HC Soul

Anthony, this is FriendFeed's biggest problem. I've created a search term that tells me when my name has been used (other than by me) but it's no good if you have a popular name or other users don't use your name in a reply. If there was some sort of generic way, say using @<username> like in Twitter then it would make this so much easier. Then FF could give us a "Replies" tab on our Feed page with a feed of our replied comments. - Kol Tregaskes

This perhaps then leads to the question of whether we need threaded comments on FF? I like them to a certain level but I don't particular want to see a Reddit-style here on FF. I'd be happy with a 1-depth thread (i.e. you can reply to an initial comment only and that is indented once). Any more will get messy. - Kol Tregaskes

Agreed: FriendFeed's notification when comments are left on any conversation you liked or participated 'd be a useful feature. - Thierry R. Andriamirado

"This is where forums are superior for enduring conversation." Some conversations are impossible to endure. (That's a joke.) - Sean McBride

I love it! I always use the term "drive by." Sometimes the conversation takes off and people are saying exactly what you are thinking, so there is not much you can add. - Shevonne

That would be good, drive bys are more and more frequent on twitter too. Gets very tiring for those heavily involved within the community. - Richard A.

I do that too, though I do try to check my "Me" to see if there's been any new activity where I've posted. - Steve Lowe

Sounds like Usenet 2.0 - Tapio Kulmala

Anthony, your original post is exactly right. Many a conversation could be enhanced with some ability to track good ones and keep people engaged in them. There's always checking the "Me" area, but it seems like an unnecessary extra step. - Chieze Okoye

If I comment or Like and item, subsequent comments and Like's should bump the item just as if I were following the author. You could also think of this as following an item rather than following a user. - Ken Sheppardson

lol - ken that is exactly what happens now via your /discussion tab... - mike "glemak" dunn

mike: Sure, if I want a list of items I've commented on, or a list of items I've Liked, (not both at the same time, of course) I can dig into the UI and find it. But in my home feed--the feed that most people follow, that includes everything--and in rooms, both in Standard and Real-time view I'd like at least the option to follow items. - Ken Sheppardson

twhirl lets you know when a comment has been posted on anything that you or anyone you are following has commented or liked. It seems to do just what you are talking about. - Alex Scrivener

@Alex - thanks, I'll check it out. But to me the issue is not as much MY engagement as the engagement of others who are doing the drive-by. I can use twhirl, but I can't make other people use it. - Anthony Citrano

Anthony +1 - Ken Sheppardson

I'd love to be notified when someone comments are made on something I commented on. Particularly if someone replies to me specifically - Chris Brakebill

I've driven by several times and hesitated to comment. My words would only echo much of what has been said about threads and other software and people's wish lists. I sense that some people would like a discussion and others need one. I would think creating a room and letting folks know you have and inviting them to meet up for a time might help. I just had them block FF and Twitter at work, so I can't participate like I once did. Time is more than money, it's life. - Phil Boiarski

@Phil: you're suggesting people create a room for everything they post? - Anthony Citrano

The algorithm for sorting your FF stream is similar to others I've worked on and seen... for handling in-memory smart caches.... a weighting based on the type of item, and its relation to you, and other things... you can think of "like" and "comment" as a direct bump, a "friend like" as an indirect bump, an so on... - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Ideally, the algorithm could be presented graphically, and you could interactively muck with the weighting factors and preview their effects on your stream. - Richard ¿digame? Walker