Facebook would be crazy not to provide an alternative venue. FriendFeed *is* the future of social. Zuckerberg is not that stupid that he won't understand this. - Meryn Stol

My concern, Meryn, is that FB will try to merge this userbase into the existing FB infrastructure. As much as I truly enjoy my interactions with FFers, the FB platform will make it almost impossible for me to do so. It'd be like my favorite bar deciding to start hosting children's birthday parties during happy hour. The two don't mesh. If they opt to keep FF up as a guinea pig site, separate from FB.com, I'm actually AOK with that. I'll be a guinea pig. - FFing Enigma

@Tina Lets hope it turns out that way, I've been here for only 2 months and LO!=( - Abhishek

Tina. Zuckerberg does recognize this new way of being social. Why else would they have offered to acquire Twitter, and why else have they been copying features from FriendFeed. They've just introduced site-wide search through all public timelines. It's Zuckerberg's dream to make people behave on Facebook like they do on Twitter and FriendFeed. He knows that this will eventually be much bigger than the model Facebook started out with. - Meryn Stol

Zuckerberg knows Facebook is lacking. That's the only possible explanation for the growth of Twitter. Do you think Zuckerberg wants his site to be "lacking"? - Meryn Stol

@Meryn, the point some of us are trying to make is that there isn't a one-size-fits-all behavior model. I behave differently here and on Facebook, _on purpose_. I have different social networks in the two places, and I won't be merging them. Everybody and their grandmother seems to think that I want to have my dad, my co-workers, my RL friends, my online friends, and a bunch of Django geeks stuffed into the same bucket. No joy for me. It'll all work out in the end, I expect, but I don't think it'll be one SNS to Rule Them All. - Ken Kennedy

In a thread started by Scoble, Ian Betteridge brought up the idea of a "Facebook Conversations" area. The FriendFeed site would become just that. I personally don't think that if Facebook had managed to acquire Twitter, they had tried to kill it. Zuckerberg is envious of Twitter's growth. It's the growth of a new social graph, based on asymmetric relationships and public updates. Zuckerberg wants to get into that game. - Meryn Stol

There's no way they would've shut Twitter down if they'd bought it. Twitter is a brand name with national media attention. Lacking in tech, but still recognized. FriendFeed is exactly the opposite: some really beefy, usable, one of a kind tech that hasn't broken into the national spotlight. It's the dream acquisition, one where you can cherry pick all the really shiny parts without having to worry about backlash from a large active community. Yes, the community here is active and VERY passionate, but it's not comparatively large. FaceBook won't get any bad press from anyone (other than FF users themselves) when/if they let FF proper go by the wayside after they've cherry picked the tech and the staff. - FFing Enigma

Wow, Tina - you just said a lot and nailed it. - phil baumann

Tina, my point is, that because they wanted to buy Twitter (for 500MM!!), they see value in their model. Because their technology perse doesn't amount to much. Since the offer was refused, I think Zuckerberg now looks into options to go into this space themselves. I think they gonna try to compete with Twitter now. Again, see public timelines, site-wide search, pages with "fans", etc. - Meryn Stol

It really is a shame, the biggest downside is the huge disconnect between the two platforms, FriendFeed is about letting users aggregate, comment on and share content from and with services all over the Internet, even services of the user's own design. FaceBook is a giant closed sandbox that wants to consume everything and then lock everyone into it. That nature alone is what makes me sad about this, even if the platform stays the same that attitude is going to eventually leak in (I fear) and spoil the fun. - matthew john ernisse

What Tina said is one of my concerns. I'm not sure the way I use FriendFeed is compatible with the likely future of the technology at Facebook. The core technologies will probably be broken off and integrated into Facebook pages, and once that is done Facebook will have little reason to support a separate FriendFeed site. - John (bird whisperer)

Meryn, I agree that all of those features you mentioned will almost certainly exist. Unfortunately, they will exist *within the confines* of FaceBook and almost certainly not on as a separate, external site i.e. FriendFeed.com (because really, it doesn't make any sense to duplicate the functionality between two separate platforms). Even if FaceBook breaks down the wall around their garden and open it up for everyone, I'd still have to be *on FaceBook* to use these features. That means I have to put up with their (currently) crappy privacy and list mechanisms, the atrocious ToS, the content censorship, not to mention the flying sheep. - FFing Enigma

Yes Tina, you nailed it. Meryn, I don't think Facebook can ever be what FF is even with (and especially with) more openness unless they allow pseudonymous and multiple accounts, and I'm not holding my breath. - Tinfoil 2.0 from iPhone

Tina, why don't you think Zuckerberg doesn't want Facebook to be also appealing to you? The rise of Twitter and FriendFeed both signal Facebook's current offering doesn't cut it for many. Why wouldn't he try to be self-critical and try to offer a better package? If he does not, he'll lose the people to the company who does... It's not like no-one can build a new FriendFeed. Twitter of course will be one of Facebook fierest competitors, but we might also see something federated, built on top of Google Wave and other technologies. - Meryn Stol

Meryn, I wish I could affirm everything you're saying but Tina is probably right. Friendfeed WAS the future of social networking. Not anymore. This is exactly what FB wanted. - Jim the Blatant

++Tina for that comparison up there. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

I think the only way FB could become like FF is if it became...well...FF. - phil baumann

Phil, and are we not seeing signs of that happening? Commenting, likes, site-wide search.... And now an acquisition. - Meryn Stol

Meryn, no one wants FaceBook to be appealing to me. The staff at FaceBook wants it to appeal to the majority of users, and the current majority of users obviously like FaceBook for what it is now. That doesn't mean they won't add some of FriendFeed's technology (like search, which is apparently already going through the mill), but the overall concept of 'FaceBook' will still focus on apps. The apps on FB are what the majority like and are, conversely, my number one dislike. The apps aren't about social media or life streaming or real time search or any of that: the apps are casual gaming. I love casual gaming, and I go to sites just for that. When I come to FF, it's for discussion and good reading, not to play Scrabble or throw sheep or take quizzes or shoot people. For me (and again, this is just me and I'm not representative of the normal FaceBook userbase), I don't want my casual gaming clogging up my discussion and reading (or vice versa). - FFing Enigma

"The staff at FaceBook wants it to appeal to the majority of users, and the current majority of users obviously like FaceBook for what it is now" - Except for all the people who are much more engaged with Twitter now. I think Zuckerberg has Twitter envy. - Meryn Stol

Meryn - yes, but I see two major problem areas: 1) Facebook's culture is just different from FF. 2) So far FB is pretty closed - there's something different about the kind of sharing that transpires in a public environment like FF versus the more private garden of FB. If FB can break out of the wall, then it may get closer to FF (not just adopting and usurping FF features as they've been doing for a while). - phil baumann

Meryn, Facebook and FriendFeed have opposing philosophies. Facebook starts from the position that you are an IRL person and have some close contacts (family and friends) that you trust and want to share with, then you branch out and share with more people, perhaps limiting what the wider circle sees. FriendFeed works more like a public gathering place, you start with people getting together over common interests, and you build trust with a few from there and share more, perhaps restricting some of what you share to a trusted circle. But FB itself doesn't have MY trust, they're continually breached it... I know that they just want to pounce on my data and social graph and mine it for very penny. - Tinfoil 2.0

LE: There have been enough signs that Zuckerberg wants Facebook to evolve. They still have to cater to their existing user base of course. It's just like Microsoft now going into cloud services. They won't kill the desktop version of Office. There's still high customer demand. Still they want to have just as good of a cloud offering as Google Apps or Zoho Office. Why? They know this is the future growth area for the industry. Try to make the parallel with social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc) yourself. :) - Meryn Stol

By the way, sorry Tina for messing up your thread. You''d probably wanted to have some sympathy here instead of an elaborate discussion on the future of the social networking industry. ;) - Meryn Stol

Nah, I'm always up for discussion =) I still believe, unfortunately, that FF will be cannibalized for tech and staff and the overall feel of FaceBook will not change appreciably for the better. Adding more features does not equal becoming a better service when some of the existing features are convoluted, annoying, unusable, etc. - FFing Enigma

I think we mainly differ in our impression of Zuckerberg's smarts. I think he has bought FF to be able to compete with Twitter, because he doesn't need to compete in the classic social networking space (e.g. real-life, mutual friendships). He has no serious competition there. The fact that he bought a company instead of trying to do it with his own team signals he understands Facebook in total wasn't smart enough to do it themselves. That in turn, says much about his intelligence - at least for me. - Meryn Stol

I don't think it's really an issue of Zuckerberg's smarts. Obviously it takes smarts to build such a popular service. The question is what he wants to do with FriendFeed, and whether what he wants is the same as what the FF user base wants. Even if the FB interface improves with the addition of FF technology, it still may not approach the open-ended conversation model of FF. - John (bird whisperer)

Zuckerberg has had years to open up his walled garden. That simple step would have catapulted FB from networking to social media. If every FB user's URL facebook.com/UserName were viewable from anywhere online without a logon including the accompanying status updates, links, photos, etc. : POOF he would have trumped Twitter for material content and FF for user base. That was all he had to do. By keeping it a walled garden Zuckerberg has kept FB network only, it was a conscious choice to not engage as 'social media'. - FFing Enigma

Tina, indeed. And whether it was stupidity or malevolence, now he pays the price in the form of Twitter, and many people calling Facebook "dead" or "irrelevant". You think he likes that? - Meryn Stol

Actually, your argument doesn't really hold because he has to deal with the user expectation that their updates posted to FB are private. What I mean is that indeed he has in some ways missed the boat... But I think that he really wants to catch up. It was worth 500MM to him to own Twitter, and 50MM to be more competitive with them. - Meryn Stol

Best I recall (and I don't pay all that much attention to this type of news so I could be wrong), FaceBook was still WAY larger than Twitter. More importantly, FB has an up and running monetization strategy while Twitter's is... Well, they're working on it. People might call it dead or irrelevant but it's still the biggest game in town for the type of service it offers (which is much more multifaceted than Twitter). As for the privacy of user updates, that's easy to address: in the user profile section, would you like your user profile to be public or private? Yes it's like what FF offers but it's not ground breaking or proprietary tech. Just that one question in a profile and the the ability to unwall your profile would have made FB THE forerunner in social media. Are they probably going to go that route by the end of the calendar year, after absorbing FF? My guess is yes. Are they two years too late? My thought: yes. - FFing Enigma

Tina, I don't know if you know, but they already ask that question now... It's just that they won't turn over their existing users that easy. It's all what you used to. On top of that, many people can use Twitter and FriendFeed in public mode because they have Facebook as their private space. That's why I think Facebook would do best to offer up an extra timeline which is always public. Hence why I brought up Ian's idea of "Facebook Coversations" (near the top of this thread). - Meryn Stol

Yes, I'm aware that they ask the question now, it's buried in their privacy mess. How many of their millions of users actually know that the question is there, that the option is there? - FFing Enigma

Yup, so I think they will change that. I'm sure that the FF team can learn them a thing or two about simplicity. Again, the acquisition signals that they did not think they could compete with Twitter on their own. Zuckerberg explicitly praises the elegance and simplicity of Friendfeed in the press release. Now, he can have them at his table regularly. - Meryn Stol

i've been getting my ass kicked by 2 babies - I wanted to be on here more I swear!!!! ; ) - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Wow, nice thread, read the full thing! Very interesting points by Logical Extremes & Meryn (Tina too of course) Just wanted to know by this comment (as I'm not fully fluent): what was the exact point of the post? That you might stop using FF? I wasn't totally sure from the direction the discussion took. Where was everybody? I was into some cyber-depression and now kicking at it again ;p - Zu from AOD

i cant even keep track of 150 1900....my brain hurts just thinking about it. ouch! - echostreamer

Zu, the original post was mainly me musing that there are so many new people on FF that joined after the buyout news and wondering what would have happened if they'd joined a few months ago. Would there have been a buyout? The discussion turned to thoughts on FB in general and I'm ok with that: turns of discussion makes things interesting =). Echo, I make no effort to keep track of all 1900 people. Everyone is in my home feed, and the things that come through when I'm on are the things I see. I miss a lot of material, but I came to terms with that a long time ago. If someone has something they really want me to see, they're more than welcome to DM me about it. - FFing Enigma

Oh, how interesting! So buyout meant subs from everywhere I suppose, from unknown peeps... have you been 'spammed' in any way? I, too, is wondering about that now that you mentioned it, people subbed to me in masses during my leave of absence and was wondering why. I'll look into those buyout news as I don't have any details on the case yet but obviously, the buyer being FB is big news. Thanks for the reply there, you've always been one of my favorite users, give the poor n00bs a chance! 9) - Zu from AOD