Somewhere along the line, I'm going to need to check out Facebook again. - Hutch Carpenter

When Facebook releases a feature like this, I get this lump in my throat that Facebook in relation to everything else is like Microsoft vs. the world in the 90s. Innovative product comes out, Facebook comes in and releases their own 2nd rate version of the product (and that's what this really is, a second rate version of Friendfeed), and the product never takes off because everyone's already on the Facebook platform. The constant rumors of Microsoft buying Facebook don't calm my fears. - Mark Trapp

sorry, what was Facebook again? - Ivan Pope from twhirl

Facebook's reaction to friendconnect is another Microsoftian move: fuck interoperability and working with other companies if it has any chance of harming the platform. Ugh. - Mark Trapp

WTF? FriendFeed created something cool, Facebook copies it because they like it, too. That's not evil or anything, that's how Google got AdWords. It's not FriendFeed that invented the feed-thingy - that was Facebook - and FriendFeed copied that feature. Does that make FriendFeed bad, too. Does that overall mean that big companies aren't allowed to create new features that are already available elsewhere? Come on, that's ridiculous! - sebmos

No, you're misstating what I said. It's not that they're evil or bad. It's that their product sucks, but they're leveraging their existing install base to compete with a superior product. This harms innovation, and it's exactly what Microsoft used to do in the 90s. - Mark Trapp

@Mark Trapp - agreed ... MySpace is doing the same thing with music. - Adam Ostrow

I'm not at all misstating what you said. Read your own comments again - you compared them with Microsoft in the 90s (and back then, they were clearly evil). So how again is competition bad? And to be honest, I like their implementation of comments a lot. It's more colorful, because it shows the commenters' profile pics, but that's something I like, because it makes the thing more personal. But explain in detail how Facebook's product sucks - probably I can understand it, then. - sebmos

I lost interest in FB with the avalanche of silly little applets appearing all over the place - perhaps its an age thing :) - David W

This whole idea of big companies not being allowed to compete is nuts. Most big internet company that develops new products will find somebody who created that already. Are these companies forced to stop creating new features? (Besides: If FriendFeed is to be successful, Facebook won't be able to stop them. I can't see myself replacing FriendFeed with Facebook, even if all the same people and comments were there. - sebmos

@David - That's precisely the same reason I don't use Facebook regularly. I do use it occasionally 'cos I have a subset friends that use it. - Kirk Kittell

@David - The same for me. Just logging in because it's still in my bookmarks toolbar. - sebmos

If they competed with a product that was actually better than the competition, rather than leveraging the fact that people hate to go to another site, innovation would still occur. Again, you're misstating my position: corporations cannot be evil. They have no ability to form moral judgement. What Microsoft did was limit any innovation that harmed their business by producing mediocre products that did 70% of what other, better, products did and made up for the other 30% with the install base of windows. - Mark Trapp

Facebook's offering is mediocre: you can't view and comment all your friends' feeds at once, you have to go to each friend's page and comment there. It supports less than 1/4 of the services Friendfeed supports. It doesn't handle rich media as well as Friendfeed. Facebook's interface is still counterintuive and a chore to work in. But all that doesn't matter, and they will never have to do anything about that because they have an install base 1,000 times larger than Friendfeed. They win by default. - Mark Trapp

Oh, and there's no discovery feature, the most valuable part of Friendfeed, because Facebook doesn't believe in letting you find out about people you don't already know about offline or from other places. - Mark Trapp

With all that you're telling me, I thing that their product is not even meant as a competitor to FriendFeed - it's not usable the way FriendFeed is used. It's a different product. (At least that's my impression.) I'm having a difficult time seeing how FriendFeed should be crushed by this kind of competition. (Microsoft targeted their products at the same people, they created similar products. Beside that they added commenting to their invention, I don't see how they're "becoming FriendFeed". - sebmos

Btw: This headline is the final thing. I'm unsubscribing from Mashable. That's worse than TechCrunch! - sebmos

You better get ready to unsubscribe from a lot of tech blogs: everyone reporting on this feature is making the same comparison. There is no fundamental distinction between Facebook mini-feeds and Friendfeed. You said it yourself: "WTF? FriendFeed created something cool, Facebook copies it because they like it, too." - Mark Trapp

There is room for both to co-exist effectively: they each serve different audiences/intentions of a user. I don't go to Facebook for news or more indepth discussions. I would use this new Facebook feature for quick commenting--not necessarily full on conversations. - Blake N. Cooper

give them all and more - so that fb's stay away from ff!! ;) - Dieter Schwarz

The idea that Facebook is copying FriendFeed is somewhat absurd, given that you have been able to comment on photos, shared items, notes, events etc since the day they were introduced. Its just allowing you to comment on even more things now, like Status Updates. - Jamie