To Whom It May Concern, If I was writing a movie based around the current scene at FriendFeed, I would cast you as the big, evil corporation and all of us FriendFeeders as the people at the community centre standing in the way of ‘progress’. But I don’t write movies and, frankly, Channel 7 News isn’t [...] - Johnny Worthington

"FriendFeed is more than a few noisy tech bloggers. While I agree that there is thick filling of tech and social media content here, it sits on a delicious base of personalities and personal connections. Over the 18 months I have been here, I have seen births, deaths and marriages. I have watched children grow, others fight cancer, couples fall in love and felt very real support through my own family issues. I have emotional currency in here, and I am sorely in debt." - Roberto Bonini

Well said Johnny. Well said. - Roberto Bonini

Thanks, Johnny. - Eric Logan

You said it much better than I ever could. - Dennis Jernberg

Well said sir. - Simon Wicks

If you agree, sign the petition here: http://friendfeed.com/rbonini... - Roberto Bonini

Bravo. - Iain Baker

thanks Johnny great letter - Stephen Baugh

Thought Provoking. They are making a movie about FaceBook, so why not FriendFeed, that is the one I would rather queue for. - Kevin J Hatton

Robert Scoble's recent words about the future of FriendFeed were meant as a call to arms by him (although that has just become clear). This is my first salvo... - Johnny Worthington

Thank you for serving up this good food for thought and call for action! Here is a meme that might be helpful for the effort - while "FriendFeed: the Company" may be history ... "FriendFeed the Concept" may be the future. It may make as good a verb as it does a noun - like "to google" has become synonymous with search, "to friendfeed" can become the core SN function. Maybe some motivation for FF owners to guide their legacy to this logical conclusion. - Dan Freeman

I have a feeling I'm being gently shepherded to Facebook. The problem is, I use Facebook for real ife friends and family, and high school classmates. So I don't quite know how to make the transistion. - Ted Gilchrist

Nice letter - the question is given that it is open source now - should you make your own? - Alternating Reality Books

http://techwag.com/index... Johnny Worthington who is one of the more dynamic and interesting people on FriendFeed issued an open letter to the developers of FriendFeed to find out what is happening with the web site. Many of the FriendFeed users (myself included) have an emotional and time investment in the system that is not easily replaced or moved over to another system. While Paul Buchheit stated on FriendFeed that the site is in the Chrysalis stage to the next big thing, the users are getting antsy. - Alternating Reality Books

bookmarked - mike "glemak" dunn from iPhone

ditta - johnpiercy

baring your soul .. johnny .. thanks for all that you do for FF and FF'ers and the chuckles .. - johnpiercy

Speaking of chuckles..... Anyone who goes to my site will still see me in my Hobo State... and anyone who comes here sees me as a pirate....... - Johnny Worthington

Johnny, if anyone can pull off "Hobo Pirate" it's you!!! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Thank you, Johnny, well said. - Michelle Martinez

1UP, Johnny. - Rochelle

Johnny - I am new to FF (and most all social media) and arrived only due to the influence of a friend that I wanted to follow (a few months ago I didn't even know what "follow" meant!) ....what I found was an interesting, informative, less commercial site that I now go to numerous times a day. I think your letter precisely expressed the sentiments of most FF'ers new and old....I hope someone was listening!! Thanks for the great effort and I, for one, second that emotion! - Sharland Allen

Because I'm not all scripty and junk the comment I made over on Johnny's blog won't come over here, so I've copied it instead: "Well said, Johnny. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask what the future holds. Paul Buchheit did say things would carry on but the implication was that it would develop into something new. Change is scary, and unclear change doubly so. When Robert Scoble said that Paul has been ill which accounts for some of the silence on FF about the future it could have calmed people down, but quite the reverse happened. People *are* unclear about what the future holds and don't want to see FF disappear. We have made real connections with people - Social Media at it's most pure. Mostly it's the connection that people want - there is little selling done but lots of sharing. And it is downright insulting to be told that "...all the geeks have gone..." when the implication is that all the 'good' geeks have gone. Excuse me, but I value people in a different way. The people on FF have made me laugh and cry tears of joy and pain, and yes, I don't want it to disappear. I've met people I could never hope to meet in real life and I've gained so much from that. I hope that we find out what the future holds soon, and that in the meantime there is less speculation and aspersions, and more bacon. Er, I mean LOLcats. Er - intelligent, warm, friendly sharing." - WorldofHiglet

well written good job - WarLord

*applause* - Derrick

+11 on a scale of 1 to 10 - thanks, Johnny. - Micah

Not that it matters, but I "liked" this. I was going to hold steady on 10k likes until my comments caught up, but this was worth it. - Bren - #smoochielips

Well said. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

For the record I NEVER have said that FriendFeed is in danger of disappearing. At least not soon. I'm not worried about that. I'm more worried that FriendFeed isn't evolving and will soon be matched by other systems (including Facebook, which is where Paul works now). Because I see that happening I have moved a lot of my time to other systems like Twitter and Facebook because I've already seen the early adopters moving there in droves. One good thing about all the gnashing of teeth, though, is that this is driving adoption and getting some of us to post and think, which is good. - Robert Scoble

johnny why do you have default permalinks? you can change them to the ones including post names. would be searchable SEO they say - ffcode

If I were worried about the servers being turned off I'd stop using this as an aggregator too. Right now I'm bringing all my Twitter Favorites in here which makes them searchable (they aren't searchable on Twitter). That's a HUGE advantage to FriendFeed for the moment. But I know Facebook and Twitter are working on search and Twitter and Facebook just made a deal with Bing. - Robert Scoble

SuperMassive FistBump to you Sir! Your letter said it all perfectly. - Morgan Haley

Very nice Johnny. - CW™

I agree with Robert. - Jesse Stay

My hope is that if they do match FriendFeed w/ Facebook that they give us all an easy way to transfer our friends over there as either friends or fans. - Jesse Stay

In case Johnny didn't see this earlier: http://ff.im/af5CI - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

ANOTHER BUMP. (cause that's what we do here on FF) - Derrick

Paul Buchheit has posted a reply to this that is reassuring: http://friendfeed.com/paul... - WorldofHiglet

Johnny, you're poignant as always. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Well put, sir. - Chieze Okoye

Excellent post. Expecting Zuck's response posthaste - TheIndustryStandard

Good shout dude. - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

If FF goes away, Johnny wont be in my bowsr lukin at wut i'm duin. and that can't be good. Well said, JW. - Bill Scherer

Thank you sir. - Dennis O'Neil

{{{ HUG }}} for Johnny - thanks!! :) - Susan Beebe

right on johnny, you rock... - Brian Appleby

I know I'm late to this post, but all of what you said is true. I tried, but couldn't say it as well. I just pissed people off. Bravo to you and I hope someone is listening. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com from iPhone

You didn't piss me off, Eric! - WorldofHiglet

Eric, sometimes passion is an unsteady rudder :) - Johnny Worthington from iPhone