Steve Rubel

I agree...though I think it has more potential as a "backend" than as a "site", per se. - Trent Olson

With some tweakings like : threads, and data portability stuff, it would be THE big thing :) - directeur

It's certainly more attractive to me than Twitter ever was. - Tom Mulrooney

Same here Tom. Directuer -- you have to give this ~5 years or so to develop. It's different than Facebook or MySpace and if successful the adoption curve will be very different. Steve R.,...thanks! - Robert Seidman

Absolutely agree. - AJ Kohn

Yeah, it feeds well through feedalizr and other front end apps and services. But I think it might run into the same problem as Twitter (no, not the scaling problems) - how do you monetise a communication platform without charging a subscription fee?...via feedalizr - Shannon Low

Robert: I hope they'll never look like Facebook or worse: MySpace! :) But things like data potability are really worth it! And if _simple_ people like me can't promote it, "famous" ones should... Hear me the Scoble? Hear me? :) - directeur

@Seidman I was reading your newsletter religiously circa 1994. I miss those days. - Steve Rubel

see all that white space ---------> potentially lots of contextual advertising opportunity. I figure it won't matter. Microsoft will throw $2 billion at them anyway ;-) - Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman : ? :) - directeur

Is Friendfeed a client? - paul mooney

The next big thing? I'm the only one in my family with a freakin' FaceBook and MySpace account... HELLO!? - l0ckergn0me

l0ckergn0me : Sure, you didn't invented the Internet! I did! :) - directeur

Directeur, data portability as you think of it may matter a great deal, and someday it may matter a lot to FriendFeed. Today is not that day, nor should it be in this stage of its development. - Robert Seidman

@Seidman That whitespace is only useful if friendfeed is a destination site, but not if people are accessing it through other services and front end apps. Maybe most people will access it as a destination site. If it becomes a communications backend, I dunno....via feedalizr - Shannon Low

Robert Seidman: Agree, but why shouldn't it in _this_ stage of its dev? - directeur

Chris P: I thought AOL was the next big thing in 1985. It took about 10 years. Patience! - Robert Seidman

Chris, he means the next big thing since AOL. - Phil Glockner

@directeur, what exactly do you want to port out of friendfeed at the moment? - Trent Olson

@Shannon, business model is definitely the $64 billion question. My guess is they want it to be a destination, not a backend and that currently most people will prefer web interface to Twhirl, Feedalizr, etc -- but it's just a guess. - Robert Seidman

Trent: My Likes for example. I can make an APML file from del.icio.us why not FriendFeed? I'd like to import an OPML here, they have the technology and the "power" to support it. Why not OpenID, also?... :) - directeur

@Steve Rubel: I miss those days too sometimes though I really like how things have progressed. Broadband, tons of free content, iPhones, etc. And J.Phil -- besides the web and all the free content, FriendFeed is the most interesting thing I've seen. - Robert Seidman

@Seidman Yeah, that's a reasonable guess. I wonder how many people notice the advertising on their webmail screens though. In the end, you're right, Microsoft might just buy them for branding purposes, like they bought hotmail....via feedalizr - Shannon Low

@directeur: ok, say you export your likes. What would you import them into? To me, data portability only makes sense if there's a logical destination to take that data into. I'm sure that future versions of the api will allow for this type of thing (but since it doesn't allow hiding, joining/unjoining rooms, etc, it may be a while, since these functions are much closer to the core functionality of ff at the moment). - Trent Olson

@Trent: here: http://feedego.com for example (disc. I made it) I think that my behavior, not only my identity is a part of me, and I should have the ability to port it and use it anywhere... Sure, it's their right to tell me : this is our service, use it as it is or f** off! But I think that services like FF should show the road to others - directeur