Dave Winer: "Louis Gray offers some noble help to FriendFeed, filling in as the marketing department they don't have. Of course it would help if they did do some marketing. They may not be aware of it, but Twitter didn't just wait for people to come to them, they put up displays all over SXSW in 2007 to boot up with that community, who already knew them from Blogger days, to be the first core group of users of the service." - Ontario Emperor

"Anyway, I think I know what they should do, and it isn't on Louis's list. But I wonder why I should give them the idea. This goes back to the point Arrington made a week ago, and then made again in his scolding of Scoble -- why are you working for these guys for free? It's a good question and one that bothers me, a lot." - Ontario Emperor

Compare with the July 2008 Valleywag post "Calacanis, Scoble, Arrington pawns in FriendFeed's smart marketing campaign" http://valleywag.gawker.com/5022553... which discussed how FriendFeed would recommend these users to other users. If Gray is right (and the stats seem to show that he is), then FriendFeed DID have a marketing strategy, but it wasn't enough. - Ontario Emperor

I re-read the Valleywag article, and realized that Winer was one of the "Popular FriendFeeders" that FriendFeed recommended. We're all in a hall of echoes. - Ontario Emperor

Ontario: there are tens of thousands of farsi users on friendfeed. Explain why you never see them if we're all in a hall of echoes. Hint: there isn't just one friendfeed. Everyone's experience on friendfeed is different. - Robert Scoble

Wonder how FriendFeed's summer recommendation campaign played with them... - Ontario Emperor

But after SXSW was the FailWhale fiasco - the service (Twitter) just wasn't ready. FriendFeed is still maturing, I support them in growing organically. Why can't the rest of the active members? - Mona Nomura

Note to self - perhaps a comparison of marketing strategies is in order, especially since I just read a reminder in Winer's feed that the 25th anniversary of the Mac is approaching. Perhaps FriendFeed should do a Super Bowl commercial? :) - Ontario Emperor

Mona, good point - Twitter's good press was followed by a ton of bad press before the good press started coming back. But at least Twitter got press, and is getting it. I wonder if there's a danger that organic growth may not be fast enough; to quote Kirk Cameron, FriendFeed may be "left behind." - Ontario Emperor

Products that are newbie-hostile have a very steep hill to climb. - Dave Winer

FF has a very good product that can be used for more than just this, they just need to get over the idea that number of users alone isn't the only way to sell their product. I'd hire a reports developer and get a reporting module up as quickly as possible, or buy out ffholic. Then put their system together with datamining and they can offer something that is missing - a lowcost way of monitoring all the different monitoring systems that exists and then deriving stats out of them. - alphaxion

@Dave I definitely agree, and couldn't have said it better myself. I'd like to think I can get my local friends in on any new social service out there or at least sell them on it, but everyone I've tried to hook into FF has responded negatively, saying they just don't get it or have no clue what they're doing. - Jon, the Beartato of FF

There's loads of potential for making profit out of their code if you can look beyond the cloud and social media. "The Overseer, powered by friendfeed technologies" - alphaxion

alphaxion, good technical ideas, but what about mindspace? We're forced to go back to Louis Gray's point that FriendFeed does not appear to have marketers - or if they do (if you believe Valleywag) then their marketing strategies are extremely erratic. I would bet that if you said the words "friend feed" to 1000 people, 999 of them would think that you were talking about a picnic or a restaurant. Say "face book" to 1000 people, and a sizable minority of them will think of a particular website. Perhaps Mona is right and FriendFeed doesn't have to be on the tip of everyone's tongue, but perhaps not. - Ontario Emperor

Dave - Agreed. I love FriendFeed, but will be first to admit it's far from perfect. But I trust them and know they are listening to every single one of us. ;) - Mona Nomura

@ontario so far they have used us to good effect for getting a base level of mindshare and in getting the word out without splurging loads of dollars on marketing. I do think they need to identify how they're going to make money first and then begin marketing to their target rather than sniping with shotguns. - alphaxion

I ended up writing a four-post series on "social media marketing," or how social media companies perform (or don't perform) marketing for themselves. The FriendFeed entry is at http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009... - Ontario Emperor

And the Twitter one is at http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009... By the way, in addition to quoting from Gray, Winer, and others, I did use some snippets from this thread from alphaxion and Mona N. Good points. - Ontario Emperor

After reading Mona's comments, I was thinking more of the tortoise and the hare. - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

++Ari - Michael W. May