I'll launch this with a portion of what I said in a Disqus comment in a Julian Baldwin post: "If I were watching a sporting event, I think that Twitter would be the better choice, since it's easier to trade comments among a bunch of people (either your friends, or the people that are using the appropriate #hashtag). If I wanted to have a free-form conversation about a particular item, I'd go to FriendFeed." http://julianbaldwin.com/blog... - Ontario Emperor

@OE, damn that is basically what I just said on your tweet. - Rob Diana

But you used fewer words. http://twitter.com/robdian... - Ontario Emperor

Twitter is great for short convos between 1-3 people and for just spitting thoughts into cyberspace. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Friendfeed is great to include several convo participants and allows you to really make more detailed comments and get in-depth discussion. Not too deep however; it's not exactly a full blown discussion forum. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I hide most peoples twitters because most are conversations between real 'friends'. Many of the people I am friends with on FF aren't real friends, I am following them for their blog posts, insightful comments, interesting ideas - not the twitter conversations between friends - John Duff

So that being said, I'd leave twitter for personal conversations and FF posts for a broader audience. - John Duff

I like Twitter to start conversations in FF, because I can quick SMS to 40404 instead of opening a browser on my phone. I also like the Twitter-->FB integration of updating my status info (others do NOT prefer this). I like a Twitter badge on my personal blog site too. Otherwise, I like to pursue all conversations in FF. - Mark Arend

Shey - while Twitter works for short conversations between 1-3 people, it also works well for large conversations - I'm thinking of major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl. Perhaps with some organization you could start a FriendFeed conversation in conjunction with a Super Bowl - but, more than likely, ten separate conversations would start up. Twitter seems to be better for those types of things. - Ontario Emperor

Mark - one of the challenges that I faced when I was doing a lot of mobile FriendFeed access was to find a good way to START a conversation in FriendFeed. (Remember that this was before fftogo.) I agree that a tweet is a good way to launch a conversation in FriendFeed - which reminds me, I have to check that tweet that I sent at the same time as I launched THIS conversation. - Ontario Emperor

I'm hiding a lot of twitter posts here. At times, Twitter is like talking to someone at a bar or a really noisy Starbucks. FriendFeed is more like sitting in a booth with friends. - Ha3rvey (Free hugs!)

Ontario - I would consider those isolated conversations about the same topic. But that's a great way to describe the difference. Friendfeed convos are usually not so isolated around a particular post - Shey, Jamaican of FF

At a bar? :) Actually, the idea of Twitter as a bar *does* seem to resonate with the way that Twitter actually behaves. If you're in a FriendFeed conversation, it is like we're all sitting in a booth, discussing something (although we may jump from booth to booth). - Ontario Emperor

Shey, you're right. Perhaps ten separate posts, or thoughts, about a particular subject (say, fftogo) may launch 40 separate conversations, but the conversations will be about the subject in general, not about the specific post. - Ontario Emperor

ha3rvey, very good analogy. Ontario, I'd say you're 100 percent on point about the sporting events being best for Twitter. I think a major reason for this is because of the speed at which you can send and receive Tweets. - Ryne Nelson

My only frustration with convos on FF is that I have to really scroll through to see if anyone directed something to me, and I can't save or favorite a conversation. I think the talks here are more meaningful and because of that they are harder to track. - Jennifer Leggio

@Jennifer Yeah that can be a pain -- but viewing only your commented posts help: http://friendfeed.com/mediaph... - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I'm going to stretch my bar/booth metaphor until it breaks, I think. There are 2 Starbucks' near my home. One (ff) is quiet, kinda cozy with 4 big chairs that I can sit in and read for hours on my days off. The other is bigger, louder, more 'something' than the first one. I dash in there, get my coffee and run. - Ha3rvey (Free hugs!)

Shey - Ah, didn't know I could do that. Learning something new every... minute - Jennifer Leggio

Ryne, you touched on something that I haven't talked about - the lag between the time you write an item, and the time it appears in FriendFeed. In most cases, Twitter displays tweets instantaneously. However, when I tried to launch FriendFeed conversations with a blog post, I had to wait at least a few minutes for the blog post to appear. - Ontario Emperor

Shey: ditto what Jennifer said. I think I knew that but totally forgot. :) - edythe

So it would be nice to have a ping service on FriendFeed that we could have our blogs ping when a new post is made, right? - Jordan Hofker

There are booths, and there are restaurants. The one difference between FriendFeed and a quiet, cozy Starbucks is that FriendFeed is actually hundreds of quiet, cozy Starbucks. Each conversation has its own comfy chairs, and people may wander from one set of chairs to another set of chairs. And you may have a bunch of groups of people talking about the same thing. - Ontario Emperor

Oh, and ha3rvey, since you're speaking about Twitter and bars, I don't know if you saw this or not: http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008... - Ontario Emperor

I think it depends on who's following you at which place. I get a lot more reaction to Twits than my stuff on FF. However, your FF generates a ton of discussion. - Dana Franks from twhirl

This is kind of off topic, but I've seen numerous cases in which someone will post a blog post and get a few comments there, but will get a ton of comments on FriendFeed. Perhaps it's the subject matter or something, or maybe FriendFeed is "easier" to comment in than, say, Disqus. Never thought of it that way before, but perhaps that's why people prefer to comment in FriendFeed. - Ontario Emperor

It's appropriate to converse *around* items on FriendFeed. It's appropriate to converse on Twitter at any time. Twitter doesn't really have any rules. IMHO, FriendFeeds conversations are a lot more focused and less random/noisy. - Corvida

@Ontario well if you sign up for Disqus and login, it can be just as easy. The difference is that with FriendFeed, you can keep up with the convo. With Disqus, you can but *that's* a lot more difficult. It's easier to *follow* the conversation on FriendFeed, though not necessarily participate imo. - Corvida

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that Disqus is hard to use - I'm just saying that FriendFeed is VERY easy to use. You only have a "Post" button, you don't have to worry about who you're posting as or whether you need to login or whatever. If you only have one option, things are simple. Not that Disqus should be simple, but I'm wondering if that's why so many people comment here. - Ontario Emperor

Why even make the comparison? You can do everything you did with Twitter on FriendFeed, but I'll hide you if you make too much noise ;-) I like FriendFeed because it promotes better more interesting discussion, plus I get the links sharing/etc like I would on Twitter. So win win for FriendFeed - Bartek Ciszkowski