Jeremiah Owyang

I too am watching the impacts about Friendfeed, but for every new tool that comes around, we claim it's a game changer, in reality, it's just evolutionary, and sometimes we even devolve. Do we have to go through this exercise yet again? - Jeremiah Owyang

Surely it's up to us technologists to provide tools that integrate with whatever the current vogue in social apps happens to be, non-tech PR people shouldn't need to stay on top of what's cool in the geekosphere just in case it breaks through into the mainstream. - Dave Kinsella

Actually I said it could fade. However what it has birthed is a game changer. Stay tuned! - Steve Rubel via fftogo

Also didn't say it would fade marketing and PR. In fact I think it amplifies it. - Steve Rubel via fftogo

@jer, i like how you sent the permalink of the discussion. for me it makes it more interactive if i don't have any other noise on the screen instead of the conversation at hand. it has its own tab and i'm more likely to come back and add more to the conversation. - Tyler Gillies

I'm enjoying FriendFeed too, but as a marketing strategist I don't believe it's a big deal yet. Maybe one day, but not yet. - Jeremy Toeman

my friend uses friendfeed, we live on an island in the middle of the ocean. i didn't tell him about it. so i consider it officially mainstream - Tyler Gillies

Obviously the genre that FriendFeed fits in is here to stay, like blogging. However, which one of these presence/microblogging/etc. services (friendfeed, twitter, jaiku, pownce, plurk, or YOUR COMPANY HERE) will be the john the baptist of the new genre is TBA. - Leif Hansen

people are often afraid of what they don't understand ..i think that steve didn't mean that exactly..i see some very cool apps for friendfeed that haven't been built yet.. noice level is high but tools and filters *will* come me thinks.. - John Furrier

One of the questions, possibly, is what kind of second order knowledge can we derive from the use of the new tool. Web pages gave us 'relevance' based search, blogs and comments gave us 'authoritative' conversation snippets. What is going to be the new concept introducedby microblogging tools is not clear yet. Lifestreaming needs to find its own utility function, and only than it will be able to maximize it. - David Orban

The fate of FF in the long-run is irrelevant. I think the important thing is that people will crave some type of life stream in order to be able to keep up. Just as people crave a Twitter alternative when it's down. I can follow FF alone and still catch most of the latest news/info I'm interested in. I barely touch my RSS reader anymore. - Rahsheen™

@STEVERUBEL I think the big game changer is we can do away with the Social Media Press Release now. - Jeremiah Owyang

@rahsheen, friendfeed _is_ my rss reader now - Tyler Gillies

Can we keep the SMR if it incorporates FriendFeed? Just been at a seminar this morning where we had to explain blogs to PR people as a precursor to SMRs - Dave Kinsella

the big game changer would be if any of this stuff matterred. It doesn't - Dennis Howlett via twhirl

At Forrester we define a Groundswell as: A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. - Jeremiah Owyang

He says "It's a recommendation engine that surfaces content (both pro and amateur) via your peers." It provides me a level of connection and insight (depth and breadth) that is the next step in instantaneous, open conversation. - This coming from a relative amateur - Paul Jonas

strikes me this is just another medium for PR/marketing - I can't see PR/marketing going away as long as companies need to get their products/services in front of people. - riaz

What Twitter, FF and others offer is simultaneously incredibly retro and oddly futuristic: word of mouth advocacy that can be instantly verified. When I hear about a new product or service from a trusted person on Twitter or FF, I can Google it and see how well it fits my needs. The role of advertising and PR is somewhat diminished, but fundamentally unchanged. The job is to coax people into making quick, emotional decisions *without* much due diligence, because they trust the brand. - Tom Cunniff

It took Steve a while before he made a post like this. He tends to be careful. I was happy to see it - Charlie Anzman

Tom Cunnif: "The job is to coax people into making quick, emotional decisions *without* much due diligence" -#ethics? - Leif Hansen

Absolutely fantabulous linkbait. You're just grumpy you didn't think of it first. ;-) - Chris Baskind

@Chris I just follow Jeremiah. - Steve Rubel via fftogo

I'm tending to side with Dennis Howlett today, he's bigger --and grumpier, then most, that's why we love him. - Jeremiah Owyang

After all the discussion I've seen in the blogosphere about FriendFeed, I decided to check it out finally. I'm still getting the hang of it--if at all-- but I'm willing to guess that as with all other social media platforms, FF might take some time before its use for marketing and PR is fully determined. They've not mastered social media quite yet, after all, and FF is only an avenue where all forms of social media congregate. - Evette

Leif Hansen - Ethics are very important to me, as I'm sure they are to you. IMHO, there is no ethical boundary being crossed here. Advertising and PR are both sales functions. The job of a salesperson is to make the most compelling case possible for the product he or she is selling. He or she is not obligated to provide an objective summary of all possible alternatives. As long as the sales info provided is truthful about what the product or service will actually deliver, I don't see an ethical problem. - Tom Cunniff

Yeah yeah. Being online didn't matter much in 1985, and the web wasn't wide spread in 1995. But a lot of us were praising the virtues. I agree it doesn't matter today. But like Steve, I believe that receiving info/communicating in this style will matter a lot in 10 years. I could be wrong :-) - Robert Seidman

@Evette, not even all forms, yet. There are other aggregators that offer more complete coverage but haven't gotten as much of a boost from the A-listers - Steve Lynch via Alert Thingy

Tom Cunniff -Thanks for the come back. I guess its hard for me to see the compatibility of the objectives of providing "truthful sales info" and "coaxing people into making quick, emotional decisions without much due diligence" Hopefully tools like friendfeed actually empower deeper investigation and public accountability into the claims made by various marketeers... - Leif Hansen

Leif Hansen - I agree it's a difficult balance to maintain. Most companies who have millions to spend on advertising consistently make very good, worthy products. But, it's a competitive world, and so it's impossible to *always* have the very best product with the very best reviews. You still gotta sell what you made, though. You have to make the best claims you can, and position it in a way so that the customer who buys it feels good about the purchase. There's no long-term business in lying to people. - Tom Cunniff

I think every generation of kids thinks they invented sex. Bloviating about every new web 2.0 gimmick is no different. It reminds me of Lewis Grizzard's quote about being a newspaper columnist. "Being a newspaper columnist is like being married to a nymphomaniac. It’s great for the first two weeks." Twitter, Friendfeed, and whatever gets thrown at us tomorrow are fun while the "cool kids" are there and just another roiling pot of spamvertisements when everyone else finally arrives. - Phil Yanov