i see it as "rss for the masses" & "lazy friendfeeding" - not for me but certainly useful for those inclined not to dive right in to rss or friendfeed, sort of a walk before you run approach... - mike "glemak" dunn

I think it’s a bad way to help new folks find friends because probably half the people on that list don’t participate FriendFeed at all or have minimal usage — including yourself. They have FriendFeed setup to pull in their activities from others sites, but there’s little to no participation from many of them (not all). How many times do we have to tell folks to participate in communities if you want to get value? The value isn’t in the content they are sharing, it’s found by interacting with the community and sharing opinions and starting discussions. Nothing personal Chris — you have some of the best Social Media content on the web today. I’m just making a point. - Shey

but shey that's the way you use ff (frankly its the way i do too) however not everyone will want to use it that way, its a pretty free-form environment that can be used in many ways other than the one we personally prefer - to be clear though i don't like lists either, but the fact is alltop has the right to create them if they desire and chris has the right to put his stuff into ff and not interact that much - we should be tolerate of any way folks want to use this great platform, shouldn't we? - mike "glemak" dunn

@Mike Just to clarify — I’m not saying that you HAVE to comment and like stuff in FriendFeed — you can just read or use it anyway you want to. But I wouldn’t recommend following someone that only pulls in shared content. Chances are there are others around who are having discussions around that same content — which is where I believe the value is. - Shey

shey: don't disagree w/ the way you recommend using ff - i use it the same way but i do also have some "input only" friends (both imaginary & subscribed to) that allow me to view/aggregate their presence, which was the original premise of ff & still a very valid one - the community discussion aspect is a very nice feature but not everyone may want to utilize it - to each his/her own works fine in an opt-in, subscription, block or hide as you see fit model - at least it does for me - mike "glemak" dunn

At present, I use it as a way to see the larger story around someone's media. I don't live on here. I've yet to find the right interface. I'm having trouble even knowing who I do or don't follow. The "friending" aspects are really rough here. The way it works? Clever. Friending, not so much. But hey, I don't sit around in here too often. Feels like commenting where the person won't see it, is my fear. - Chris Brogan

FF makes it easy to participate, even with people we don't follow on twitter or we don't have in our feed reader. - Mário Pires

Have to agree with the "who the heck is following me? am I following them?" aspect. It's kind of tricky. The only thing that helps somewhat is that the little balloons to the left are yellow if I'm following someone or white if I'm not. Still, I'm slowly getting sucked in bigtime. - Lucretia Pruitt

I'm all for anything that raises the marvelous Ms. McCray's profile: she's truly doing a service for the small town biz person with her work all over the web (and off of it, too). That said, I'm not nuts about Alltop or Frienderati-rama. Want to like them, really I do: they're striving to provide a service just like Becky is. But they seem...off. There's something missing. Chris, I'll agree with you that FF is some tough wrangling. I like it, but it's like wrestling spaghetti or something. - colleen wainwright

That list seems to be mostly tweets and google reader shares, but there are some gems in there. I'd like them to look a little deeper for people who are really bringing something to the platform. How about Hao Chen's scripts and Directuer's Noiseriver? There are plenty more. - sergiooo

How did Kawasaki get on the list? He's never left a single FF message (just tweets and stumbles) and subscribes to just one person (Arrington, surprise). - Sprague D

@droffset: I second both of those nominations. Both of them could use a little more exposure (for the good of all FriendFeed users) - Thomas B from NoiseRiver

i appreciate Shey's argument. - edythe

+ Shey (and edythe by proxy). Chris makes an excellent point: he's concerned about his audience NOT seeing his conversations here in FF... Unfortunately, FF is *not* yet mainstream, so I can see folks being reluctant to adopt who have large public audiences / communities established outside of FF. Those folks would have to use Disqus or another integrated means of aggregating their content - related conversations all in 1 spot (thus the entire concept of FF). - Susan Beebe

It appears that Alltop has already made quite a few changes to the Frienderati list. I see Mona and Max Gladwell and a bunch of new names since yesterday. - Chris Baskind

Chris - Definitely better but not quite there yet (I'm not sure there's a formula for this since everyone's interests are different). Still at least 5 that just recently started using FF - Charlie Anzman

still don't like lists but i think the fact that shey is now on the list is pretty ironic ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Aaron: Yes, he is. And a gentleman. - Chris Baskind