Well, my real question is: what is the overall guy to girl ratio here on Friendfeed? In my feed, it seems as though there are very few women (three, maybe four - more if usernames are ambiguous.) - Jennie Lin

I'd like to know that, too: it's going to be impossible to accurately tell as they don't ask for gender, but based on the few data sets we have (now including yours), it's probably around 85% male, 15% female. Reminds me of an Engineering school. My question is: is this a symptom of friendfeed, a symptom of social media, or a symptom of early adoption? - Mark Trapp

Absense of Profile Info makes this data hard to get... - Yuvi

I don't think it's a symptom of social media in general. Lots of women on Facebook and Twitter. Definitely fewer women here. - Jason Wehmhoener

@Jason: really? Do you think there are a lot of women on Twitter? Is your guess 50/50 or just better than the 85/15 FF guess that Mark made? Of the 30 people I follow on Twitter, 4 are women. Well, 5 if you included momku :) - Jennie Lin

I take it back, I just counted 18% of the 308 people I follow on Twitter are female. (First time I'd visited Twitter in a couple months, incidentally) - Jason Wehmhoener

Also, the "following" twitter pages are organized by userid, which is based on when you joined (lower numbers = joined earlier = shows up first in "following" pages) and I noticed that there were a lot more women on later pages than earlier pages, so there may be an early adopter bias toward the male gender in social media. - Jason Wehmhoener

That's what I was thinking. There's nothing inherently different about the types of connections, time investment, or content generated on Friendfeed than Facebook and MySpace, and those presumably have much more balanced guy-to-girl ratios. - Mark Trapp

@Jason - that's an interesting observation about the gender component to when someone joined Twitter. - Hutch Carpenter

There could be a bit of a bias to the early adopter social media piece introduced by the gender of the funding resources. Most recent example I experienced was that there was definitely a flurry of activity on Friends for Sale App in the month or two before funding, when many of the VCs and angels were playing with it. They in turn often buzz about it with friends to see how receptive friends would be to the service (for indication: will it fly or sink?). I've seen similar dynamic play out over & over. - Casey

@Mark: In my mind, I think there is something inherently different about content btw Facebook and Friendfeed. To me, Facebook is about *your* content - photos, your favorite movies, wall conversations, status updates - where FriendFeed is about sharing content that you see elsewhere. Facebook is much "easier" and interesting in that sense to the non-tech enthusiast ("let's talk about ME"). That's how I see it, anyway. - Jennie Lin

I see what you're saying, Jennie. Friendfeed might do well to build out profile aggregation: it tracks what you're doing with ease, but doesn't really say much about who you are (other than in the context of what you do). Do you think that's a stumbling block for women using Friendfeed? Or a stumbling block for Friendfeed to ever go mainstream in general? - Mark Trapp

FriendFeed reminds me of the early days of Pownce: lots of digg & SU & other network hidden folks. It's all out in the open here and it's hard to control (there's that word) what you see and don't see. I know about the "hide" option but not complete. I'm enjoying seeing all *friends* feeds here but having a hard time deciding how to add new folks and their feeds. - Barbara K. Baker

Mark, few thoughts re: getting more women to adopt FriendFeed. FF isn't compelling until one has at least some minimal cluster of people and content that engages them. Without this, my first week I almost walked away thinking, "meh, what does it add?" [I've since embraced it and it's the 1st thing I go to when I open my browser now.] I think two things need to happen to stimulate the adoption: 1) typical community building, get a few of the tastemakers to engage and embrace it, their communities (contd) - Casey

Mark (cont'd), their communities will follow and many may adopt the platform, in turn bringing their communities, etc. and 2) (part comedy/part truth) there's a gender difference in that women are willing to seek directions when lost, FF doesn't yet do a good job with providing a guide/help for onboarding new users. yeah, basic functionality is obvious, but there is def utility that isn't apparent and most users are not going to rummage through the forum. FF is at stage where new users won't know employees - Casey

Well, perhaps the early adopters in technology are generally males. - AJ Kohn

I think there would be some use to a more effective onboarding experience. I see more than a few comments along the lines of "I don't get it" from users who have just signed up. You have to start adding people as friends to understand. Personally, I think the "How to import Twitter contacts into Friendfeed" post isn't a bad place to start: http://internetducttape.com/2008... - Jason Wehmhoener

way too much friendfeed is discussed on friendfeed, i hope the hype clears fast and ff becomes more useful - bvs

Casey, definitely: I think that's what every social network has to overcome, though. There's a case for a service evangelist in every group of like-minded people, and a case for early adopters who build up the community. There might be two things at play here: how do you make Friendfeed and other social services to the mainstream, and is there a real gender divide that's not overcome when Friendfeed goes mainstream? - Mark Trapp

That is, is Friendfeed inherently a man's service, or does it just look that way because Early Adoption is a man's game, and if either of those are the case, what, if anything, could be changed to make it more gender balanced? Why don't more women engage in early adopter activities? - Mark Trapp

Bhaskar: Friendfeed is a familiar tipping off point, but the spirit of this discussion is about the role or effect of gender in social media. - Mark Trapp

didnt mean this article or discussion, just generally - bvs

FF's anti-UI just doesn't cut it with the ladies, does it? - bvs

Mark, interesting convo, enjoying it. I think w/FF gender divide will move toward balancing out by time it's mainstream.There's a bit of difference in how the genders use the internet in that women are often utility/get something done focused then move along to other tasks, whereas guys may wander about a bit more for amusement/curiosity and aren't as task-driven. This may explain why if there's not obvious utility, women move along & don't embrace it immediately (and to AJ's point, some may not be aware) - Casey

Some might say this is because women know they have better things to do and guys have too much time on their hands. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

@Jason: my female friend sends- "exactly" - bvs

LOL. I was trying to stick to facts and a bit of diplomacy so as not to blow up the convo, but yup... :) - Casey

Also, this isn't just a woman-thing but a "non tech die-hard" thing: the overwhelming majority of posts in my FF is tech related. It's an incredible echo chamber about FF/Facebook/Twitter/VC/Silicon Valley. The diversity of content just isn't there yet. If I'm a person not interested in technology, why would I join FF? - Jennie Lin

Jennie, agreed, that's part of why I mentioned seeding other tastemakers to grow other aspects and expand to larger community(ies). Luckily I've found a bit of politics, nonprofit, art, environment conversations and I try to include these in my feed as well, but you're right that it seems a bit narrow and net-preoccupied (and self-perpetuating on that node) at present. - Casey

jennie is really right about the echo chamber of tech stuffs. even casual chats i "overhear" are more often than not tech-related. - edythe

The tech stuff doesn't bug me much. I've found enough references to art and music and just about anything else I want to keep me happy. I think the word needs to get out more about the existence of FriendFeed. I found it by total accident. I did a search on Google about DeviantArt and got a result from Mashable that called DeviantArt the "FriendFeed of art" in the blurb. That led to entering the URL, & the rest is history.... all within less than 2 weeks ago. - Kamilah Gill