In case there was any question, I *love* what Chris Griffith has done here. I’m a big fan of this kind of media making to build community. My questions are around what ELSE one might use and do. : ) -- Chris Brogan - Brad Coy via Bookmarklet
Thanks Anne-Marie. That was quoting Chris from the comments. Be great to see you comment over at the post. - Brad Coy
btw- just took a look at your idea. Very cool. looking forward to your post. - Brad Coy
Thanks for the update, I read about yesterday and wondered what would happen next. Most of the sites were Hillary people who will be supporting McCain - Daltonsbriefs
According to Compete, last month Twitter grew at a 14.7% rate and FriendFeed grew at a 45.6% rate. If these growth rates remained static, FF would surpass Twitter using Compete's metrics in a little under 9 months time. I predict that within one year FF will show more users on Compete than Twitter. You might not be able to imagine it now, but exponential growth is a powerful thing. - Thomas Hawk via Bookmarklet
I can totally see FF overtaking twitter within 6 months. This past week was an excellent indication of that trend. - Susan Beebe
The numbers don't say that. FF is great, but if Twitter is a mallet, FriendFeed is a hammer. Similar tools, but not the same. There aren't directly in competition, and I don't necessarily see one overtaking the other any time soon. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
It could certainly happen earlier than a year Susan, a year is just a safe bet. FF's momentum could propel and increase the growth rate beyond what it has been in the past month, which could make this happen in as early as 6 months. - Thomas Hawk
You look at a graph like the one above and it's hard to see it. But if you graph the actual monthly month over month growth rates from last month into the future they intersect actually in just a little under 9 months. - Thomas Hawk
Maybe sooner if Twitter continues to ride the Fail Whale and FF continues to be the all night stud. - Tad Donaghe
That assumes two things: 1) Twitter never gets fixed and 2) out of the vast amount of users, twitter doesn't suddenly bounce into the mainstream. It's far more likely to happen to Twitter than FriendFeed at this juncture. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Mark, doesn't matter if Twitter is a mallet and FF is a hammer or not -- the numbers do *absolutely* say that. Do the math yourself with a spreadsheet. According to compete Twitter = 1.7 million users vs. FF's 300k. Run 1.7k at 14.7% and 300k at 45.6% and FF surpasses Twitter in a little under 9 months. It's pretty simple math. - Thomas Hawk
@Thomas: Which points are you extrapolating on the FF numbers to reach that conclusion? Are you taking 14.7% and 45.6% to be constant from t = now? - Kirk Kittell
Kirk, yes, per my statement I'm assuming static growth rates based on last month over month growth numbers provided by Compete. - Thomas Hawk
I doubt that FriendFeed will overtake Twitter. FriendFeed's simplicity doesn't match Twitter. FriendFeed has a lot of simplicity compared to other web services, but Twitter is just so simple, easy, and fun. I'm pretty sure that the Twitter guys will eventually get a stable Twitter. - possible248
I guess I don't understand those numbers. Didn't FriendFeed launch in October 2007? How is it beating Twitter and pulling away before that? (Sorry to bludgeon you to death, Thomas, my job is basically to be a professional skeptic. I was never liked anyway...) - Kirk Kittell
Kirk just plug the numbers into a spreadsheet. 300k X 1.456 and repeat that equation for 9 months. Do the same thing with Twitter at 1.7 million x 1.147 and you'll see what I'm talking about. You are right to be skeptical. But if you assume the growth rates from the last month were accurate and continue it will happen within 9 months. - Thomas Hawk
No, I meant: how does FriendFeed have any stats pre-October 2007? I must be making a really bad assumption somewhere along the line. - Kirk Kittell
Only problem Thomas is that I remember seeing similar stats several years ago "proving" that that Linux would become the dominant OS by 2006 or something by looking at it's growth rate. Good new things tend to grow a lot faster than older good things. Just as Twitter's growth rate has slowed, I'm guessing FF's will as well, especially if Twitter gets "fixed." I'm rooting for FF too, but it's not really a level competition. - Tad Donaghe
possible248, you're assuming that 1. A site needs to be simple to grow. I don't think FF is any more complicated than Facebook or MySpace. And 2. That Twitter will stabilize. Some of the hardcore programming geeks that I know are saying the opposite. That Twitter's architecture is flawed from the ground up and what we are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg, that it will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible for Twitter to scale. - Thomas Hawk
I don't think growth rates will stay the same. Twitter is just beginning to hit "normal" people, the early adopters having moved to FF. Growth rates at FF will be fast now and then slow like Twitters I think. Plus, they feel different some people just wont like one or the other - Daltonsbriefs
And that's a fair guess Tad. But even as FF's growth were to slow, so would Twitter's. I think that the current numbers though don't reflect the power of momentum which I think will be coming in the next 6 months. Momentum that we've only just begun to see this weekend. - Thomas Hawk
Kirk, I'm only using a one month number, which is a big assumption, I know, but again, I don't think we've begun to see the real momentum with FF yet. - Thomas Hawk
Thomas, personally I don't think FriendFeed has the mass appeal that Twitter has outside of the tech crowd. Twitter is simple, uncluttered, and very easy to use. With FriendFeed it's easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of information. Besides, average Joe or Mary on Twitter doesn't know anything about RSS feeds, Disqus, Diigo, etc. For them (and this is where the mass appeal comes in), Twitter is a simple group chat service, which FriendFeed will never be. - Dewald Pretorius
Daltonsbriefs, don't underestimate the impact of a site's power users on growth. 20% of the users are responsible for 80% of the traffic. These important 20% are in the process of jumping from Twitter to FF now, this weekend was a groundswell. - Thomas Hawk
Point taken, Thomas. I suppose that plenty of people would be interested in FriendFeed. While Twitter's architecture may be deeply flawed, I don't see Twitter dying completely. A redesign might be necessary. - possible248
Nevermind, Thomas. I thought about it for a second and better see what you're saying. Anyway, I'm not against FriendFeed -- I mean, I'm here, eh? -- just trying to think about where it's going. I should stick to my day job, so to speak. - Kirk Kittell
Yes, but what statistical model are they using to project? Hmmm. - Kathleen C
My guess is that Twitter users will move to friendfeed eventually cause it "does Twitter". For the others that don't use either, it's telling them that everything I do is on friendfeed but Twitter is where you find one just what I'm doing. friendfeed surpassed Twitter in 7.48 months in my calculation :) - Andrew Smith
possible248, I don't see Twitter dying completely at all -- in fact they will continue to grow. A 14.5% monthly growth rate is actually awesome. FF is just growing faster is all and has momentum on their side. Combine that with a vastly superior underlying architecture and you've got all the ingredients for FF to surpass Twitter. - Thomas Hawk
Kathleen, a *very* good question indeed and something that only a handful of people will ever get to see. I seriously doubt it's my wayyyy oversimplified back of the napkin figure here. - Thomas Hawk
Two presumptions: Twitter will still be alive this time next year, secondly, that if they are that they will stay where they are with traffic. If you look at Alexa (I know, not brilliant, but timely) you'll see Twitter contracting in traffic rapidly (it's back to March levels). FriendFeed will definitely pass Twitter, but I'm betting it will be in 6mths on a combination of FF growing and Twitter shrinking. - Duncan Riley
Perhaps another way to put this would be that at one time Yahoo! was Twitter and Google was FF. Yahoo was *huge* back then compared to Google, 5x as big. Yahoo! had explosive growth, but Google had a superior product and even bigger growth. Eventually a bigger growth rate and better superior product surpasses a slower growth rate and an inferior product. - Thomas Hawk
Duncan, six months is a very good guess indeed. - Thomas Hawk
Totally agree. I don't buy into the "Twitter-killer" mentality but FriendFeed has certainly supplanted Twitter for me. - Ray Grieselhuber
But one of the best parts of FriendFeed is responding to someone's original tweet. So the two are not mutually exclusive... - Rachel Rubin
Rachel, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. In fact Twitter can still prod along at a very healthy 14.5% monthly growth rate. But as long as FF's growth rate is bigger, they will surpass them. But I don't think FF "needs" Twitter to grow or to go where it needs to go. - Thomas Hawk
Same for me. My twitter time has slowed down to a craw. I use it for updates about 3-4 times a day and sometimes when I reply to a twitter message here, I check the box so that the reply gets posted to twitter as well. On the other hand, Friendfeed has really peeked my interest in the past few weeks. The amount/level of discovery that takes place here can't be match by any other site, twitter included. - Tsega Dinka
I am still finding it hard to follow a particular conversation on FF - Robert
FriendFeed won't drink Twitter's milkshake until it adds two features: input from IM (you can tweet from your AIM client) and input from SMS messages (a lot of people tweet via SMS on their phones). - Adam Turetzky
I remember feeling that I couldn't rely on email anymore during AOL's problems in 1996. Twitter feels the same today. DMs getting overlooked, etc. - sage brennan via twhirl
I also agree with other that Friendfeed doesn't (yet) appear to have the mojo to tackle the mainstream audience. Twitter could make this jump despite pissing off the digerati, because it has the "obviousness of purpose" that many popular services have... like the telephone. Pick it up and talk. With Friendfeed, people will be put off by the confusing, geek-chic subtlety of the service. - sage brennan via twhirl
Does this Compete.com graph measure just the Twitter.com web site? If so, then I think this is under-reporting the actual usage of Twitter. What about all of the Twitter updates that are made from cell phones, IM clients, AIR clients, not to mention people who are consuming Twitter content through services like Summize, TweetScan, Quatably, and .... FriendFeed? I know that FriendFeed can also be accessed through other channels such as FFtoGo, Mail2FF, Twhirl, etc. but compared to Twitter it's a low %. - Mike Doeff
@Thomas: context absolutely matters. FriendFeed does a different thing entirely than Twitter. if context didn't matter at all, Twitter wouldn't exist and we'd be having this conversation on a phpBB, because that's essentially the same function as FriendFeed. What the tool is designed/mostly used for determines who will use it. For that matter... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
... it isn't an issue of a percentage point multiplied out over months. Growth/shrinkage changes. Velocity of growth changes daily. Given that Twitter has a very huge audience compared to FF, there's a much greater chance that their numbers could catapult. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
The major mark of a cult is fanatical devotion to a leader. However, the people mentioned in the article aren't devoted to Obama, but to their image of him. They wouldn't know the real Obama, who works in Washington DC, supports Israel, and wants to DOWNPLAY his middle name. Similarly, the author isn't a member of the cult of McCain. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
The changing middle names thing was just plain weird, cultish for sure - Daltonsbriefs
@Mark - does that include the offing of heads to take another site's power? - MG Siegler
MG, totally. And forget about the home field advantage of the bay area. Really successful social networks are situated in Scotland's inland moors. - Mark Trapp
Wait... so are we all the Watchers? Bah. No... they never interfered. - Ken Sheppardson
A nice review of the Long Tail relating to blogging. Well done! - phil baumann
I'll take slow growth in readership and conversation over one-hit wonders on Digg or Slashdot day in and day out. One post doesn't build a brand. - Kevin C. Tofel
congratulations to Darren for hitting 50K subscribers - Mark Dykeman
Still a little unclear as to the "Long Tail" concept - Chris Rodgers
Commented that federal program could be a mess, perhaps better as a state program, more accountable - Daltonsbriefs
Both sides should embrace a commitment to deploying broadband nationwide. I can get broadband in rural parts of Wales, and not in parts of San Jose, California. - Prolific Programmer
Nice list, I added a couple of people, surprised that Mitchell Tsai isn't mentioned as he is really active here! - Joe Dawson
LOL. The worthlessness of that list is illustrated by the fact that cdibona (who barely uses FF, no offense Chris) is listed there. Can we get over trying to measure who the best social addict is? - Erica Baker
No need to measure, wouldn't that just always be Scoble? - Scott Beale
It's just fun with Google, Erica and all. Mark didn't pick the list. For whatever reason, the Google indexing engine selected these IDs in that order. - Louis Gray
Joe: I was the #52 person on "google.com/search?as_q=friendfeed&num=100&as_sitesearch=friendfeed.com" http://google.com/search?as_q=... However, Google customizes it's search for everyone, so who knows if the author used a clean-slate machine to do the analysis? - Mitchell Tsai
I just looked at a few of those. I find them kind of interesting, although a few of them don't post too often - Chacha via twhirl
Robert - did you get any sense of how much WH access tech in general and social media in particular might have in the next administration. And is it likely to be more than now, no matter who wins? - Tom Landini
As refreshing as it is to have an election with candidates like McCain and Obama whoever wins will have HUGE challenges. Best wishes for whoever gets the job. - Chuck Boyce
Tom: the White House will definitely be more open to bloggers and social media types next time around. There are a ton of people bringing it in, from Congressmen John Culberson to NBC Camera Guy Jim Long. - Robert Scoble
I appreciated the post, and used the thought in a post on engagement being much tougher to handle with all these new tools http://twurl.nl/expho0 - Daltonsbriefs
I'm almost there, but still nothing showing up. Will it be for "going forward" posts? - Chris Brogan
Chris, the Blogger versions grabs your last 90 entries. I assume WordPress is very much the same. Just wait a little for it to populate. - Louis Gray
When I set up something like this in Drupal there was about an hour lag between the comment in FriendFeed and showing up on my site. Prorogation delay for RSS feeds, or something like that. - Aldon Hynes
whoops. so much for the green candidacy. a one fuel economy? how is this good with food in short supply? turns out Obama is the solution of ass kissing. haven't you Obama idiots come to the realization that one fuel alternative is what got us into trouble to begin with? Democrat/Republican who cares. it is all about $$$$$$. What about the sugar industry? what about all the other options? not likely with Obama - Noah David Simon
“I think that it is a boon for us that the Fredheads are now joining ranks and forging a bond with the McCain group in order to grow the group and contribute to the campaign not only members but monitarily.”
An added boon is the addition of the Clinton supporters who liked her as a woman and perhaps even her middle liberalism as opposed to Obama's leftist liberalism. Crazy to think of Hillary as moderate, but she is compared to Barack - Daltonsbriefs
