"I believe that there is space between Twitter and FriendFeed for a service that's dumber than FriendFeed and richer than Twitter." - Dave Winer from Bookmarklet

This definitely deserves more than just a Like :) - Nicola Quinn

I expect this piece to be very popular here on FF, but not so popular on Twitter. :-) - Dave Winer

However, if you read it carefully, you'll see that it's not FF that I want -- it's too much. But it has features I don't want to give up. - Dave Winer

I think as long as there continue to be third party apps that fill in the missing pieces for Twitter there still won't be a mass migration over to Friendfeed. Which is too bad. I think I prefer FF too even though hardly any of my friends are on it. - Chinkerfly

good analogy of MS-DOS vs. MAC, and I don't ever see the mainstream public ever understanding FF. Twitter is easy to use and not so time consuming. FF is the behind the scenes look at feeds. Everything you want and then some, and to most that idea is too overwhelming. So, I agree, some in the middle would be nice for the society at large. - Bob Blunk

I think that the other feature that is completely necessary is a way to view replies in context with the original tweet (like a threaded view). I understand the technical difficulties involved, but oh is that maddening. - invariant - farewell FF

I completly agree with what he says in the end : " I think a graphic and visual Twitter would kick ass". Oh and groups... I can haz groups IN twitter? (no 3rd app please)... - Tiago Jorge from Alert Thingy

Wasn't Pownce essentially a graphic and visual Twitter? Didn't kick much ass as I recall. - Brian Sullivan

I think trying to compare Twitter and FriendFeed is that whole apple/oranges thing. Twitter is basically public IM, whereas FriendFeed is a massive RSS reader. Just different ideas entirely. I am not sure if the connection between the two can or should be made. - Rob Diana

This is why I think discussion features are highly overrated: People don't read the piece they're commenting on. I would be in favor of a system that wouldn't let you comment until you answered a CAPTCHA type question that proved that you actually read the piece you're commenting on. Because people don't read before they write, basically you just keep having the same "conversation" over and over, with people repeating their standard talking point on a subject. - Dave Winer

BTW I did read the piece. Just because you say that Pownce doesn't fit your idea -- with no supporting evidence btw just an off hand remark doesn't make it so. - Brian Sullivan

Except, often comments are in response to other comments, not the original post (which I did read, but didn't need to to make this comment). - Kenneth LeFebvre

What I want to Like in this discussion is Dave's last comment. - Chris Baskind

Okay I believe you read the piece, then I don't think your comment is accurate, I thought I did a pretty good job of anticipating this common response. Pownce certainly wasn't a good test of the idea, it was a lot more than I was asking for (as I said in the piece) and what I didn't say is that it had trouble staying up cause I didn't want to rub it in as it was going off the air. - Dave Winer

Why not just eliminate the echo chamber through the company you keep? - Eric Schwartzman

...and liberal use of Hide. - LogEx

Ya, it is annoying to see comments from peple who obviously didn't read the article. But it is even more annoying to see the author criticize those comments and not possitively influence the conversation. I did like the article though. - Bob Blunk

How do you feel about the author apologizing for annoying you? Just checking in advance, because I want to make sure I don't further annoy you. :-) - Dave Winer

Of course it could be that you find the author checking in advance to be not just annoying but infuriating or condescending. It's so complicated. I'm so confused. :-) - Dave Winer

at least you weren't confused in comparing ff & Twitter - MaryAnn Chick Whiteside

I like the article as well -- the analogy seems succinct and appropriate. If you take it to its ultimate conclusion though .. what filled the gap between the Mac and MS DOS was ..... Windows. - Brian Sullivan

It's funny, I would have picked the mid point that added some kind of threading, but kept the 140 character limit and the URLs for media (it would be nice to have the URL separated from the 140 characters though so I don't need to keep dealing with tinyurl etc). - John

Correct. I wouldn't call either Twitter or FriendFeed anything more than first generation approximations of what people want. But leads built in the early part of a market have longevity. Apple got to make a lot of mistakes yet still was able to come back, over and over. - Dave Winer

Interesting framing. I think that for friendfeed to really compete with twitter, it would need @ support. I agree with your picture comment and am amazed as to why twitter does not have the ability to embed and display pictures and video link. This is one of the killer features of the facebook iphone app. Could facebook be the middle ground application you are describing? - Elisa

The analogy between DOS and GUI is a perfect one. Clear, succinct and right on the money. I had never thought to make that connection before. Obviously I'm biased as a photographer, but I think that the world is very much a visual place. This one aspect alone is what puts FF (and Pownce for that matter) head and shoulders above Twitter for me. FF is so much more than just images, but the images are powerful indeed. - Thomas Hawk

The problem with a new service coming in between Twitter and FF though is mostly time. FF in some ways is at a disadvantage to Twitter because of first mover advantage, even with a better mousetrap they are a less popular service (so far, time will tell). The longer any new service waits the harder it will be to succeed. Of course both Twitter and/or FF could morph into the type of service that Dave is talking about. Maybe. - Thomas Hawk

I can see huge advantages FF has over Twitter, but getting through the visual layout feels awkward. Great stuff under the hood. - kilbuda

Thomas, either one could morph toward that position, and I hope at least one of them does. On the other hand, eventually something new will come along. Windows and Mac weren't the last word on personal computers -- you have cell phones, and web servers, to name two extreme (most personal to most impersonal). And Google wasn't the last word on search either -- Facebook has search in it and now Google is struggling to catch them (and I'm pretty sure they won't). FB also found a way to compete with mail... - Dave Winer

...and I'm sure no one thought that mail could be competed with. In other words no need goes unserved forever but it can be delayed by a dominant player. Too bad, in retrospect, that FF didn't challenge Twitter when they were having all the outages. There was a rare moment of vulnerability, the kind of oppty that's not likely to come again. - Dave Winer

Dave, I agree with your comment about that window of opportunity that existed when twitter had all that downtime. Even Pownce had an opportunity to do something during that period time to make it become a serious contender and instead just kind of went about it's business. It's frustrating because Pownce could have been so much more than it was. - Jon, the Beartato of FF

The analogy is stretched. There's no "full circle", you're just talking about the same design issues that have plagued product developers since the beginning of time, and picking DOS/Mac as your analogy overstates the importance of Twitter. I also personally don't see any reason why Facebook and/or Pownce don't fit this "in between" service you're talking about, other than the latter's failure to get any traction. - Eric P

And someone...will inevitably...find a way....to fill that space. - Adriana

At this point in time for me, the difference feels like Twitter is akin to tapped-out telegraph messages bouncing around at high speed, whereas FriendFeed is a go-around-the-table commentary swarmed around an exhibit (at variable speeds). - Micah Wittman

Twitter is just Twitter. If anyone looks for something else, then go ahead and choose another service. Feature creep is the first step to kill a perfectly good app. Friendfeed, jaiku, tumblr, they all have their uses but Twitter excels at conversations, it's not supposed to be media centric. - Armando Alves

I wonder if Dave has tried Rejaw.com - Tokyo Dan

Friendfeed is still in its early stages, I would say still in the Alpha phase. The "something in between" you're expecting may be a future version of FF. For me the only thing FF lacks to reach that stage would be a mobile interface, something for posting quickly and on the go. I know there are some tools out there, but I need something like Twitterberry (I'm a Blackberry user) or similar with the advantages of FF. If this thing happens and is fully usable, then FF will blow Twitter away. - Jordi Soler

What if you could talk to FriendFeed's database in real English and say something like this: "Please build me a view with no Likes; no Comments; No More menu of all my friends feed items that have two or more Likes and/or two or more Comments." Wouldn't that be the "in between space" that Dave is talking about? I've been asking for those kinds of features since February 2008. I will bet $100 that FF will take off after adding those kinds of features. - Robert Scoble

Yes! After using FriendFeed a lot over the last few days I am really craving that type of feature set. - Mike Flynn

The problem is that Twitter has already defined microblogging. The other services are already considered clones, and need more features in order to compete. The only way we really get something in between is when some application is able to reply to people at Twitter and build the needed functionality on top. FriendFeed has some of it, but it is mostly one-way replies. Bidirectional replies is needed, plus the obvious grouping and threading that everyone seems to want. - Rob Diana