If you want to see Hype Machine as a supported service on FF (without having to route through Twitter), please leave a comment here... http://groups.google.com/group... - Mike Doeff
Textbook example of how to make a great mashup: two songs, both good, put together cleverly, to make something more than the sum of its parts- job done! - Iain Baker
That's a great mashup- if you want more check out the Best of Bootie collection; my favourite is: http://tinyurl.com/5qq6m3 - Fearghas
The one thing that I think would massively improve FF is the duplication of items; say once from a blog and then again from GReader. If they can crack that, well I'd be a happy bunny! - Fearghas
One major concern is whether there really needs to be a messaging feature. There are messaging systems already like Twitter or even that slow thing called email. - Rob Diana
I'm not so sure about that Fearghas. I'd agree, but only if the post didn't have comments. Lets say someone blogged about something and I hid that. Someone else might blog it and it might have a great conversation attached to it that I'd miss. This would be a good feature but I'd like to filter it by with/without comments. - Thomas Hawk
A way to separate spheres of interest - Right now I've only invited friends to subscribe to me who want to talk about social networking & geeky stuff. If I pursue friends to talk about health & philosophy, for instance, wouldn't they find my current comments irrelevant and want to shun me? - Mark Arend
Good point Mark, I've thought about that with regards to DMU, a group where I post on Flickr. That place is *way* too crazy of a place -- and if I posted here like I post in there, all but about 20 people would probably hide me. Maybe the thing to do there is to create two FF accounts. Regular Thomas Hawk and Crazy Thomas Hawk for instance. - Thomas Hawk
I agree with everything except the direct messages. About the duplication of items, maybe they could be clustered together but indicating which have comments, so we can participate in them. Another thing I would like is to embed songs from Songza or similar services. That would be cool. ;) - Alejandro S.
Alejandro - I like that idea. I'd really like to perma-link to those "clusters" as well. Since my blog is currently on Tumblr, I link to the blog post when it appears on FriendFeed to allow for comments. If I could link to a cluster, that'd be even better. - Jordan Hofker
Thomas - #8 is what I'm looking for. I'd *love* to be able to invite someone to "take over" their current imaginary version. It seems like something that would really increase FF users. - Jordan Hofker
The ability to make your imaginary friends private would also be good. I created two for my children (so I could see their activity on other sites) and people started subscribing to them. Not what I wanted. - TranceMist
@TranceMist - your imaginary friends aren't private?? I could swear mine are... @Thomas oh dear, talk about fragmentation! Making a split personality in FF?? I wouldn't want to have to create a FF account for my separate interests... Might work for some services but not for twitter or my blog where I post whatever I like. It would be a lot more of a burden on users to insist on that. Give us filters instead so people can just not see the stuff from you they don't like and keep the rest. - Lindsay Donaghe
@Fearghas - regarding the duplicate links showing up in your FriendFeed stream. Check out Bret Taylor's post on this and see what you think. http://tinyurl.com/6zw4rp - Hutch Carpenter
Added a link to yours from mine! That's 32 now team FriendFeed - I hope you are listening. - Jeremy Toeman
Updated my mobile FF rant and am pleased to be able to do so ;) - Colin Walker
wow, the iphone version is nice. doesn't look that much different than online. - Rob Diana
Just tried this on my Treo 700p and it seems pretty sweet. @Colin @acedanger - I have mine memorized too....it is sad. - elroy
It even works on a Blackberry - that is way cool @bgolub - Sally Church
Hmm...it doesn't pull up on my iPhone like the picture...shows full-size and the text is too small. - Paul Arterburn
beautiful job. writing this from my treo 700wx, the world's worst cell phone. if it works here it will work for anyone. thank you for developing this. - Michael Pardee
So sweet. Working great on my Palm Centro! Good job folks! - Dan Nimtz
via twhirl
@JP try again? I just had some errors that I fixed - Benjamin Golub
tried and get "whoops something went wrong" when I try to comment. - Thomas Hawk
Sweet, gotta try it at lunch, my colleagues won't be happy with me though. - Caleb Elston
Very nicely done. That is just what I was looking for in a mobile version of FF! - Scott Jarkoff
I look forward to trying this on my iPod..as soon as I can find a wireless connection. - Mike L
Not working for me :( Just to be specific, when I put in my username and key and click "Login" it just goes back to the sign in screen. I've tried several times. - Vince DeGeorge
Sigh; Google App Engine has for some reason stopped sending authorization headers. I'm looking into it. - Benjamin Golub
Not working for me either. Can't log in. - Morton Fox
Regular Friendfeed works great on my iPod. - RAPatton
I'll have to try this (1st gen Moto Q with Windows Mobile 5 and IE4) - Ontario Emperor
I love all the rapid innovation that's going on here! Nice job Benjamin :) - Aviv
Looks very nice on the iPhone, but where is the search functionality? Thanks for your time and hard work developing a great app Benjamin. - James
It seems to work ok on my SE P1i, but I dont really like this remote key thing... - Fredrik Wennberg
via fftogo
unless you have Verizon for your carrier. Brightkite won't work with Verizon either (in my experience) - Greg Hollingsworth
via twhirl
Atleast the FriendFeed remote key is easy to remember. Very "human like". I already memorized mine by the third time I had to punch it in - Bartek Gniado
Twitter doesn't work (properly) with Verizon, either. I never get device updates. - Steve Lynch
via Alert Thingy
funny twitter works for me fine on my verizon phone but not at all on my N75 w/ATT - Morgan
via twhirl
Iv'e got the same problem as Vince DeGeorge on WM6 - rodmitch
testing FriendFeed for mobile right now. pretty neat! thanks @louisgray - Myriam
via fftogo
And then there's tumblr. :-) I'm still working out how all of these pieces fit together best for me. I'm leaning towards tumblr as my private version of FF. Then again, just how many of these tools do I really need? :-) - Joanmarie
Rob you're right without SMS, FF is lacking. Joanmarie that is the other part of this. These are tools. Just tools. So, which tool works best for you and does what YOU want it to do? - Tris Hussey
joanmarie: tumblr is more of an egoblog for me, easy to post stuff I like, not caring if anyone notices. - rob
via twhirl
I think that if FF gets bigger, then Pownce can still benefit due to files/links/events, so it's not mutually exclusive there, but Twitter can only lose. - Eric Florenzano
Rob: Exactly. That's what I meant by "private version of FF". :-) "Egoblog" is much more clear and concise. Thanks! Tris: I have no clue. But I'm having fun working it out. - Joanmarie
I think it's going to be a long time until Pownce or Twitter takes the place of FF. I just don't think of FF as the same. FF is more like the bookshelf than the book. - Clay Newton
Today proves FriendFeed's opportunity! I haven't seen much increase in Pownce traffic; whereas FriendFeed traffic is going up! - Susan Beebe
definitely FF. But I agree with rob: we need SMS integration in FF before it can totally replace Twitter - Alexander Falk
FriendFeed activity is hot. These comments are amazing. But ... checking if this chatter also brought you to read my post. - Tris Hussey
FriendFeed's opportunity for sure. I used Pownce for a while, but it just died. There used to be posts every 5-15 minutes. Now I'll be lucky if a page doesn't have a post from yesterday. - Zach Flauaus
FF is great, but the lack of serious mobile connectivity, beit SMS or a native app etc just kills it for me the moment I'm away from a computer; why I still end up using Twitter. If, and it's a big if, FF can get some serious IM/SMS/m.ff access going, then they can capitalise, I think. - Fearghas
First time reader Tris, so you can count at least 1 hit produced by FF. I think this quote hit how i feel about FF right on the head "the glue that might stick it all together." Not so much a replacement as it is a facilitator for people on social networks. Thanks for the interesting analysis. - Geoff Schultz
Good points, however, you'd really need a lot of people to join FriendFeed in order to make the actual microblogging platform irrelevant. - Mark Dykeman
Agreed with Fearghas. The mobile integration still keeps me Twittering. - Jared Smith
via Alert Thingy
“One thing I'm not necessarily liking about FriendFeed is that because I'm one of 4 teens in my network, I feel like I have to watch what I say. Like, I can't say random blurbs of things since everybody else is an adult. That's mainly a demographic thing though.”
Ok. I hate Algebra II. And I really don't want to go tomorrow for two hours because of one exam. After that, though, you'll be seeing a lot more of me. :) Who's ready for that? - Zach Flauaus
Yay for that. Rock that exam and then don't just spend time chatting, do something fun with that extra brain power. - Todd Jordan
If you keep your comments like your post, you'll be fine. - Vince DeGeorge
How old are you? Of course only if you want to tell :) Cause Im a teen myself. - Gadiel Rivera
If I didn't have a truck that got 15mpg, I'd probably go shopping with somebody. And by shopping, I mean window shopping. Maybe I'll take my mom's car... - Zach Flauaus
I've heard of it, but to be honest, I don't think my parents will go through and look at my 4000+ tweets. Weirder things can happen, I know, but I don't put anything too horrible. - Zach Flauaus
BE YOURSELF... don't censor yourself too harshly. But do remember what you say here is now available to the entire planet! and TRACKED by a variety of web services ;-) sooo that is a head's up to everyone! - Susan Beebe
@Zach - I know the feeling, I've got an algebra exam in 7hrs, hence why I'm up this late (2.45am GMT). The great thing about ff is that it's just about the content and conversation; you're not judged on your age or demographic, just on whether you're doing something interesting. - Fearghas
@Susan *Cough*Google*Cough*. ;) @Fearghas So true. Just on Twitter I get on rants sometimes. At least with FriendFeed it will be all in one thread. :) - Zach Flauaus
This is one of those situations where I feel really bad clicking "I like this", but I want to mark my appreciation for it. Makes me feel I should be doing something more meaningful with my SX-70 that's sitting in my drawer. - Fearghas
Wow. I tried taking a picture every day for a year. Only made it 6 months. I can't imagine doing it for 18 years! That's really dedication, especially when I'm sure there were days he simply didn't feel like it because of his health. Amazing, yes. - Lindsay Donaghe
Incredible and inspiring. Thanks for posting this! - Jeremy Brooks
...I began my 365days on flickr 01.01.08 and thought that would be a large enough endeavor. For him to do that many years is amazing...so is his story. - JA Castillo
That is very moving. Thanks for sharing this persons story. - Geoff Schultz
Amazing. Reminds me a little of Matt Haughey's '10 Years Of My Life' project (http://www.tenyearsofmylife.co...). It appears that Matt abandoned the project late last year. - Mike Doeff
this is one of the reasons why FF is so cool and why I like to cast a large net and add as many people as possible. I've been finding so many really interesting stories from other people on FF here lately. I probably would never have seen this story had it not been for finding it here in Sacca's feed. - Thomas Hawk
@Thomas which is why I reposted it from Ken Norton's feed. I love the diversity of posts here and some just should be seen by any many people as possible. - Christopher Sacca
Wow. This just basically makes me want to start a 365 project sooner than I planned. I am currently too busy but I'd like to take at least one pic each day, for as long as I can keep up. - Rosana Kooymans
very moving. I like the sports he watched, photography, skiing, etc. - Andrew Smith
I kinda like Bookshare and the Flixter app has been of some use as well - Deepak
Visual Bookshelf can be useful - add books you own or want to read, and it'll notify you of other Facebook users posting reviews of them. - Brent Newhall
via twhirl
Friendfeed, Flickr, TwitterSynch, Skype, Spock, Business Cards, Gaping Void, LinkedIn Contacts, MyLinkedIn Profile, Professional Profile, As seen on, Paneras near me, Starbucks near me, Upcoming, Digsby Widget (chat), Rock your Firefox - my favs. - Susan Beebe
Yes. Actually useful stuff in the area of dating, music sharing, and photo sharing (flickr/picasaweb). With that said, I've found 99% of the apps to be junk and wish I had a shortcut key to Block Application. - Adam Lasnik
Seems like the only useful things on facebook are the interfaces to apps outside of the walled-garden - ♫ Rahsheen™
i like the friend wheel app as it is so shiny and colourful but yes, many apps are workind with outside data / services klike the ff app. - Nicole Simon
check back tomorrow on RWW for a big post on this :) And THANKS!! - Sarah Perez
Chiming in way late: Stitchbook was good pre-Ravelry, but the hunger site app is the only one still really useful to me (previously I would click several times a day not sure if I had clicked it before or not, which is a waste of time). - Alix Whitmire ƸӜƷ
Take a look at http://apprate.com It's a site I was editing (and writing a number of reviews for) as part of my internship last summer. As part of that process I installed, tested, analyzed the hell out of, and reviewed dozens of Apps, and believe it or not there are some good ones. - Ryan MF
Facebook? What's a facebook? I dimly remember something people used to call Facebook from the way back a long time ago. - Thomas Hawk
...after hearing all the hub-bub and how it was "the thing" to do, I create a profile a few months ago. All I have ever really done with it is play Scrabulous and keep in touch with one or two people. - JA Castillo
College kid to the rescue ;) There's one called Weekly Schedule that I really like. If everyone used it, you'd know when they all had class or work. You'd also know who all was in a particular class - helpful if you have a sick day and need notes! Other than that, ehhhh... not much going on in the way of useful apps. - Shawn Farner
The iPhone interface. Facebook is my address book with a little bit of peanut gallery thrown in for good measure. - Eric Rice
I find the Google Calendar/Facebook even integration kinda handy, but I usually just have greasemonkey set up to removed all the crap from peoples profiles before I view them... - Fearghas
“Do you think friendfeed links should open in a new tab/window? I know holding cmd/ctrl does this but I often find myself wondering where FF went in my tabs.”
https://friendfeed.com/account... has a setting so you can open links in same window or a new window. Opening in new window/tab is usually controlled by you via browser settings. - Atul Arora
There is an "open in new window" option in the account settings page... - Fearghas
There is a Friendfeed option that makes all links open in new windows. - Morton Fox
New Tab. I like this setting when I can get it.I'm a tab junky par excellence. - DAVE ID
IMHO all links on the web should open in the same window unless I choose otherwise. The target attribute for links is one of the worst features of HTML. New windows/tabs are confusing and break the back button, the most pervasive and understandable UI feature of the web. - Ole Begemann
Didn't see this in the settings. Thanks - Andrew Smith
“Idea: Twit-Out the Soundtrack - What would be good songs to add? My additions: "Revolution" by The Beatles and "You've Got A Friend In Me" by Randy Newman”
You Can't Always get what you want, you can't always get what you want, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get FriendFeed! - Thomas Hawk
Hung Up - Madonna. That's right, I threw a Madonna song in. - Zach Flauaus
Taking Care of Business- Bachman Turner Overdrive - jeff Evans
Wow, having a hard time choosing between Thomas Hawk's choice of "Another one bites the dust" and Jeff Evans' choice of "Taking Care of Business" songs: oh boy...another cool one to add by Zach Chrisholm's choice of "I still haven't found what I'm lookng for". - Susan Beebe
“was just laughing to myself at how FriendFeed is changing what I do - was just reading a comment on a blog post and I didn't want to leave my own comment but I wanted a "like" button to click to show support for the comment”
I like the "like" button, but sometimes I think it should be called something different. I don't like "liking" a blogpost about something upsetting; perhaps a "star" button would be better? - Fearghas
Star would work - just something that would allow readers to give a thumbs up or even a thumbs down to a comment on a blog without having to post their own comment - Marco (aureliusmaximus)
I didn't pick the video. That's all Caleb. I'm getting way too much credit for things I'm not doing. :-) - Louis Gray
Whoops that's not the first time I've done that - mistaking the person who shared as the originator. Louis, you're everywhere as once it seems on here, I couldn't help it! Caleb's the man and is doing great things with Toluu... - Vince DeGeorge
Vince, glad you like the clip we chose! Now I have a connection to that crazy old man. lol - Caleb Elston
I still need an invite for Toluu. :( - Gadiel Rivera
Send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com. Anybody who wants an invite to Toluu will get one. - Louis Gray
What does Toluu do? I guess I'm not as close to the bleeding edge as I thought... - Fearghas
I find it most useful for feed recommendation. I don't find it any good as a feed reader - Shey
It's not a feed reader, it's a layer above your favourite feed reader that allows you to discover new feeds & share your faves with others. It truncates feeds so that it's pretty easy to get an idea what a prospective feed is like. It has a very simple & clean interface which is refreshing boarding on sparse. The toluu toolbar works extremely well once you have allowed toluu.com as a trusted site. FAQ http://www.toluu.com/faq - Steve Allen
Steve got it spot on. We are not trying to be your feed reader, there are dozens of amazing desktop and web readers out there, we want to help people share the feeds they read with their friends and discover interesting new ones. We added the new YouTube integration so that you can getter a better sense of what the feed is before you decide to subscribe. We are still in private beta and working on improving the recommendation algorithms as well as introduce some new functionality. - Caleb Elston
Thanks guys, that sounds really interesting, I shall go and check it out, once these blasted exams are over; at the moment FF may well cause me to fail as it is... - Fearghas
Very cool, please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas for things you would like to see added (or removed) from Toluu. While we can't integrate everyfeature (Microsoft Word) we will seriously consider every idea. - Caleb Elston
Matt, I'm interested in the answer to that as well. - Phil Glockner
You aren't. You just start seeing duplication. - Akiva Moskovitz
Matt, what happens when you subscribe to their new FF account you begin to see dupes from them and their imaginary account in your FF stream. At that point you just drop the imaginary account and keep on with their actual account. Personally I think it would be better if FF could auto detect when they join and simply replace the imaginary account for you. - Thomas Hawk
Matt, I wonder the same thing. And yes, imaginary friends are an awesome feature. - ha3rvey
...aside from the great information and commentary from all of you, the imaginary friends aspect of FF is the killer aspect for me as I am such flickr addict. - JA Castillo
Thomas and Akiva, so unless you explicitly know that the person has joined Friendfeed, and then add them, you continue to see the imaginary stream, and thus none of the FriendFeed shared posts? I think FF definately needs an auto check system for this somewhere... - Matt Harwood
Great question. Looks like a lot of people I know have yet to join, so I need to just imagine they have. =D - jerry
I noticed that, after importing my Gmail contacts, FF gave me the option to store the addresses of all friends who aren't on FF yet. So I'll be notified when they sign up. It would be great if FF could make the discovery of friends' profiles all over the web easier, too. I might have a contact on Flickr but no idea where else on the web they are active. When I add them as imaginary friend I'd like to enter their email and then have FF discover all their other accounts for me. - Ole Begemann
...it would be great if FF could import all (or any you choose) of your flickr contacts as a batch. Setting up individual imaginary friends gets tedious after a bit. - JA Castillo
"...it would be great if FF could import all (or any you choose) of your flickr contacts as a batch." Now THAT would be slick. I'd love that. - Thomas Hawk
JA & Thomas: Agreed. Unfortunately, the FF API does not support adding friends (imaginary or not), so this cannot be done by third partys devs at the moment. - Ole Begemann
JA Castillo: The best would be if FF used Google's Social Graph API--that way they could import all your friends from all services which support open DataPortability standards (Twitter, Digg, Pownce, etc.) - Eric Florenzano
I'd really like it if FF could work out if my contacts/friends/followees on other services have an account, and import them, and if they don't have FF, make them imaginary friends... - Fearghas
I haven't set up an imaginary friend yet, but it is definitely a cool feature - Shey
My imaginary friend's name is Mr Wiggles and he lives in the closet under the stairs. - Capn' One-Eye ☠
I have to agree. You can also use it to aggregate people from a team as well . . . much like those planet feed sites. - Lyndon Washington
@ Eric Florenzano - now that would be some goodness right there! - JA Castillo
Your note about adding Flickr imaginary friends reminds me of Dave Winer's FlickrFan. I've been turning on a spare Mac just to let the FlickrFan screensaver run. When people come over, they just stop and stare at it. - ha3rvey
Extremely appreciative of the mention, Thomas! Thank you! Though... um.. Matt Hardwood? ;-) - Matt Harwood
ha3rvey, I still need to try out Dave's FlickrFan. My problem is that it's Mac only and I only have a MacBook Pro (that I'm typing on now and that is my primary computer). For media consumption at home though I use a Vista Media Center PC and three XBox 360 extender units. I use Slickr to download all my Flickr faves on the internet and then run similar slideshows with my Media Center PC. - Thomas Hawk
Thomas, that is a great tip: to see my Flickr connections faving photographies on FF! - Jeroen De Miranda
Great post. Additionally another random source is to check the "everyone" tab occasionally - I've found more than a few interesting things that way. I also like to randomly search for topics of interest and subscribe to the posters. - Doug Brooks
Thomas, Thanks for the link to the app for importing Twitter friends into FriendFeed. FF should do this on its own, but the app provides a great service. - Gregory Pittman
via twhirl
I don't see the advantage yet to viewing Flickr photos in friendfeed vs in your RSS Reader. I was already seeing what my favorite Flickr people were fav'ing by subscribing to their fav feed in Google Reader. Plus you get to see the "unsafe" photos in Google Reader too (I think). - Kevin Reed
I only have a handful of my Flickr contacts added to FF via "imaginary friends", but it's been a much better set-up than via RSS. I don't have to subscribe to both their stream and their faves; I simply get both. - JA Castillo
And the subscribers start coming; 7 so far since you posted this have subscribed to me. - Benjamin Golub
Thanks for the mention! coolio! Yep, the subscriptions are on fire baby! woo hoo! <Twit-Out! FTW!> - Susan Beebe
@Kevin Reed, the design and layout of imaginary friends Flickr feeds on FF is a much cleaner, better, look than the Flickr RSS feed. Plus I can see it all here where I already am without having to go to an RSS reader. I've stopped using RSS readers entirely now. - Thomas Hawk
@Doug Brooks. That's another GREAT tip! - Thomas Hawk
Lots of useful information here! Thanks... - Simon Bisson
Thanks for the mention! I commented on your blog entry too but the Blogger comment system doesn't like me. Hope it went through. - Morton Fox
No mention here either but I'm fine with that. You see, I would never join a club that would have someone like me as a member. Heh heh heh. - Akiva Moskovitz
Just finished reading it - really great post. A few good people, and a few good ways to find more people. And a few tips to get the best out of those people. Nice one, Thomas. - Michael Randall
via twhirl
@Thomas Wow, stopped using rss readers. I was wondering how to handle the balance/overlap between rss reader and friendfeed. - Kevin Reed
@ Thomas - how are you now keeping tabs with what you gathered via RSS feeds? - JA Castillo
Excellent post; really good to see so many posts explaining how to get the most out of FriendFeed- really preventing me from doing revision! - Fearghas
This is the first time I was mentioned in a top 10 list. Speechless. Thomas your involvement here will help the FF community grow. - Russellreno
Jeremy, you know I love you. That's the problem with these sorts of lists. Inevitably people get left off simply because they didn't come to mind right away. You are definitely someone worth subscribing to and I think the work that you do to introduce business to social media is invaluable! - Thomas Hawk
Michael and JA Castillo, RSS is dead to me now. Like Twitter. At some point I may need to take some of my top RSS feeds and make imaginary friends out of them, but hopefully those bloggers and news sites will just join FriendFeed instead and I can subscribe to them here. RSS was way too noisy without effective hide functionality. FF is a far better way to consume content. I'm also finding much more interesting new phtography news here like the story I just found from JA Castillo and blogged. - Thomas Hawk
Thanks for the reference, Thomas! Now I have to live up to being interesting :O! I was wondering why I was getting all those subscription notifications all of the sudden! - Lindsay Donaghe
I follow pretty much everyone in this article already! And I try hard to follow more people than are following me. Ok, it's not that hard actually. - Phil Glockner
You're becoming the ultimate feeder amongst my friends! - Steve Rubel
I'm still surprised by the amount of people on Twitter who haven't yet jumped on the FriendFeed bandwagon. - Eric Florenzano
apparently I'm not good enough for you :-( - Duncan Riley
People have this habit of following some top users just for the heck of following and reading what they talk among themselves. I'd rather follow my friends and have a good time then follow some A listers who won't know you exist. - Palin Ningthoujam
Thanks for the great list. I really like the one about adding your twitter friends to FF. I shall be working on that. Oh well I guess I will make the list next time ;) - Jeff B
"What if this "number inflation" suddenly sweeps through all Google apps? Will I seem more popular on GMail even though nobody e-mails me there? Will miles be added on to every trip when I get directions from Google Maps?" - Louis Gray
I've been experiencing that a lot tonight, Louis. The sidebar will say I have 200 items, but the main area gives me what you pictured. I was able to clear it up by signing out of Google and signing back in. Annoying to say the least. -
