Michael Randall

Interesting - For me, Twitter and FriendFeed still serve different purposes and that seems to be the case for a lot. So while many Twitter-ers may adopt FriendFeed - I don't see it completely surpassing it in 6 months.... - George Smith

Awesome. Keep watching this space. - Hao Chen

I'm guessing the overlap in the user bases should be pretty high. So even though the rate of growth of Twitter may be much lower, i have a feeling most of the people who joined FF recently are already on Twitter. Till we have a comparable number, it may not be a completely true analysis to say people are preferring FF *over* twitter, would it? I too believe they serve different purposes and should co-exist. - Parth Awasthi

They may have different purposes but they are definitely competing for the same attention width. - Brian Sullivan

George, I agree, I have them both open right now, is that weird? - Cody Heitschmidt

Certainly FF is siphoning off some of Twitter's growth. I think though that FF is much more addictive and multifaceted than Twitter and is the stronger momentum play right now. If I were running a hedge fund (I'm not) and these were both publicly traded companies (they're not of course) I'd be tempted to short Twitter and use the money to buy long shares in FF. - Thomas Hawk

This chart also likely corresponds with the amount of Scoble's Friend Feed sticker giveaways :) - Brian Ries

http://www.uploadpad.com/files... - Shawn Farner

Thomas - Thanks for your thoughts. When twitter has negative growth three consecutive months we will have another facet to discuss. - Russellreno

I'm with George Smith on this one. This is not an either or. These are 2 good tools and I'm sticking with both for now. BUT, with every Fail Whale I see, my doubts grow. - shelisrael1

The initial growth of FriendFeed, but if you look at the total volume of users of both services, FF has a ways to go before it's going to overtake Twitter. - Brandon Wood

when either gets to 10m users they we will have a story - David Henderson via twhirl

i see the need for both but would like to see friends collapsed as 1 set - Lee Kent

we'll know these companies have made in when all the good people have left, the comments are full of pr0n spam and your mum asks you for your username... - Barry de la Rosa

I think one of the main reasons for more adoptiong is the ability to have a tru conversation, without having to hunt for messages every few seconds. I think it would be great if they do some more features to make it easier - Shivanand Velmurugan via twhirl

comparing month on month growth rates isn't really that helpful here. obviously the doubling time for FF is going to be less than Twitter because it is starting from a smaller base. In terms of users/month Twitter has been growing faster than FF, something I expect Twitter are pretty happy with given their recent problems. - Samuel Bostock

Samuel, that's what people said last month. Since then FF's growth has only gotten stronger though while Twitter's has gotten weaker. month on month growth rates certainly are anything but accurate forecasting tools. Still, perhaps FF will eclipse Twitter's growth even *more* next month. - Thomas Hawk

I never imagined this would have this fast - Akshay Dodeja

any idea on total user #'s? Twitter's surely saturated - John Cozen

The big question in my mind is when will the FF graph flatten out? Trees don't grow to the sky and every site / service will start to plateau at some point. Either way, this will be fun to watch. - Mike Doeff

Just imagine how fast they would grow if they incorporated Facebook status and Myspace content. Right now they are siphoning from a small pond, Twitter and the microblogging networks. There is a lot more opportunity for growth if those two are brought into the fold. - Andrew Burd

I don't think it's a shock that FF growth rate is high. Twitter broke new ground. Most FFers are Twitters also -- and Twitter was probably the first mircoblog we've all used. Making the switch is easier. - Rob Williams

Everyone I know is Switching to FF from Twitter - this is real buzz I think it will overtake Twitter. - Luke Jeffrey Smith

uuhh.. is *no one* here discussing how compete.com gets it's data? vitally important.. - Barbara K. Baker

I'm seeing much less response on Twitter, and I hope it's not because I've gotten boring- I think the conversations are on FF. - Brian Carter

I definitely spend more time on FriendFeed these days than I do on Twitter, even though I have orders of magnitude more friends on Twitter. I would say there's not much competition there! - Scott Jarkoff

Doesn't really mean much as FF's growth will still be playing catchup to Twitters current capacity. - Stuart Forsyth

Its interesting to watch. But there is still the simplicity of Twitter that keeps many who have grown accustomed to a society that offers crap service as the universal standard. - Curtis "Winer" Cross via twhirl

It depends which way you look at this data. I'd rather have Twitter's curve. - John McCrea

It sure is funny to watch the these bloggers push FriendFeed, like they are getting paid or something! - Thomas Capote via twhirl

It looks like social media aggregation is a major rising tide. Check out Plaxo Pulse vs. FriendFeed. Remarkably similar slopes. http://siteanalytics.compete.c... - John McCrea

JMc - Plaxo is growing faster than FF, and I have not seen any hype around Plaxo. - Russellreno

but still, i can't help but think FF is rising BECAUSE of twitter. people come here to check it out. if they stay, great. if not, they've still got the numbers. right now it's like a few months ago when everyone was talking/blogging about @twubble and other "twitter-pack" type apps and bots. i had a HUGE follower surge. same shit, different month. - Hillary Hartley

Russellreno: It's because we chose private sharing and conversations for mainstream users around circles of family, friends, etc. - John McCrea

Clearly, though, I use both services (and really like them both). As the British would say "horses for courses." (Different horses are better for different courses. - John McCrea

Will Google ever stop using Blue... - Bindu Reddy

Well too bad, I cannot use it... I only have a Mac :( - Bindu Reddy

@Cartwright grr: "Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox." I suer hope Mac support is on the roadmap. - Clay Newton

firing it up in VMWare... - Robin Barooah

interesting. i'm a big mmo fan, even though this is just a virtual chat room i will check it out - Chris Harris

Looks like the artwork from Gorillaz. I'm Mac only, but even if I wasn't ... meh. - AJ Kohn

Got a server login error message. Odd because my login works for other Google apps. - Chris Herbert

Inneresting. Wonder if they'll develop privacy protocols around this as well, so you can have secure and private group chats in a rich environment. Hmm.. - felix

:O Pretty interesting, I wonder if you're able to import your own items. - sergiooo

@Chris: It seems you are not alone. I am getting the login error too. - Vinay | विनय

who cares about mac - silpol

Yeah. Now once they combine this with Google Earth, it'll become really interesting. - Steve Lynch via Alert Thingy

@Chris @Vinay I had login errors too via the client, succeeded by logging-in first via "Sign in" at the top right of the lively.com home page - David Peacock

Here's a FriendFeed Lively Room -> http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=2... - Nathan Chase

Windows only? I can't even make myself a sad panda avatar. - Goran Zec

They need to take a page from HyperCard or Squeak/Smalltalk and implement live in-world programming. I'd buy into that. (That, and please support other platforms) - landonf@bikemonkey.org

Ah right, thought I remembered something like that: http://www.opencroquet.org/ - landonf@bikemonkey.org

Dear Microsoft, why the hell do I have to reboot every time I install software? Surely there is a better way. - Rah™

Of course you don;t have to reboot after installing all software, or even most of it. Even most OS updates these days do not need a reboot. - Soulhuntre via twhirl

You can say limited abilities again. - Andrew

as someone who's twitter account is currently entirely broke, and feels like she's been put on mute, I'd have to agree. - Erin Kotecki Vest

I don't get why people put all of their messages into one service. I have most of my Tweets linked up through ping.fm that posts them to multiple services, not just twitter - Chacha via twhirl

chacha it's a time issue for me. twitter was the fastest and easiest. was looking at others, but didn't have the time, like a real early adopter might, to get into a bunch of other things. - Erin Kotecki Vest

I agree. its annoying when you know about all these services, or might not know, and then if you don't have enough time to figure out if it is a waste of time or soemthing acctually useful, kind of just stops you from trying the beta stuff. - Chacha via twhirl

Erin, I think you're missing a bit of Chacha's point. While it's true that keeping up with every new service is difficult/impossible, Chacha was speaking more to the fact that services like ping.fm allow you to "spread your bets", so to speak. If you post at a site that posts to other sites for you, you can focus on the site you like, but still have a presence at others. That way, if you have to switch, you're not completely starting from scratch. There's still network disruption, but it's lessened. - Ken Kennedy

Dave, "Centralization is inherently dangerous." tell that to the honey bee !! But seriously its not bad, if all users in utopia mode :)-. I believe that the expectations of society in and by itself needs to change. The greed for materials and money is the shortcoming of humanity. As you walk thru The Corridors of Time o you will certainly see that humanity comes together and then breaks down b'coz of ego and greed. Technology hives are no different. I agree, FF, Jaiku, Pownce all have the same dilemma !! - Peter Dawson

I wonder whether it is not possible to establish an open format for microblogging and especially commenting. Subscription and specialized search engines should be enough to follow conversations. is that too naive? - Heinz Wittenbrink via twhirl

centralization is very bad. Vote Republican... we aren't for the single government corporation. Put your vote where your mouth is and don't support the brown shirt Palestine supporting National Socialists. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

if you think internet tyranny is bad for your comments... just wait for the reality tyranny to come knocking on your door. It is called Obama and it smacks of internationalist tyranny. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

Here is the funny part. All the Comments in Friend Feed are all in a Single Basket. I like the fact that FriendFeed Aggregates all of your content so that the acctually sharing is decentralized (You have a list of your shared stuff on Google Reader and Delicious, etc) But all of the comments you post up are completely on FriendFeed. Is that going to be the next step? Maybe allow all of your comments to be hosted on your blog and then aggregated? - Chacha via twhirl

If we allow "the government" to control what we (or corporations) do, there will never be a "bigger and better" version of Twitter. - Craig Eddy

I'm sorry, but this is crap. One poorly designed application architecture isn't a call for large-scale revolt. Blah, blah, blah. I'm so beyond tired of the whining and bellyaching. If you have a better idea, then build it. If not, then quit complaining about it. It doesn't accomplish a thing to sit and bitch. - Cyndy

Twitter down doesn't bother me much since I only use Twitter a few times per day, and I use it for different reasons and with a subset of people that don't -- and I suspect won't -- use FriendFeed. So, my messages are strung across services: friends from high school use MySpace; friends from university use Facebook; friends from India use Orkut; other friends use Twitter; strangers I talk to use FriendFeed; etc. That's why I scoff at the "email is dead" notions -- email doesn't feel fragmented to me. - Kirk Kittell

Yeah, his brand of "IT" = "Internationalist Tyranny". Got that right. - William, CPU Media

Well this really isn't a big revolt. It a bunch of people coming to realise that keeping all of your content in a single area prone to crashes is really a bad idea. - Chacha via twhirl

Chache -- that's exactly what I'm saying. - Dave Hussein Winer

I wish I could string those services together... - Kirk Kittell

@Kirk I doubt email will ever really be dead. Kind of like Postal Mail Today. Its the backbone communication system that you know is almost always reliable, aand for the most part private - Chacha via twhirl

BTW, since you use twhirl, I'd like to point out another way we can get safer. If our clients create an archive of everything you do, but not on Twitter or FriendFeed, that's a good way to: 1. Recover if the system you're using fails and 2. Encourage the development of parallel systems to do innovative stuff with our tweets and FFs, etc. If you think it's a good idea -- send Loic a message. He likes video messages, I hear. :-) - Dave Hussein Winer

My last comment is a big one guys. If we can get users to ask Loic for this feature, I promise -- developers will be able to do cool stuff with it, and not just guys who can keep huge honkin servers running. You'll see an explosion of new creativity. - Dave Hussein Winer

I'm always amazed when I read comments like this. Twitter is a free web service that no one forces you to use. The original premise was "What are you doing ?" so it was just a bit of fun. If you base your business/web presence/your indentity on Twitter then you are in trouble. A decently hosted website and email are the most important things for your activity on the web. - Paul Nash

I hear ya Ken. I guess what I'm saying is I didn't know about Ping or others until well...now. - Erin Kotecki Vest

"A decently hosted website and email are the most important things for your activity on the web." Yup. And make sure you have an office with a pretty receptionist. And take out some ads in the Yellow Pages and the local TV stations, too. And hang a shingle. ;-) - Josh Bancroft

Dave has an important point regarding archiving (no matter how you define it). Tweets and FF shares and comments now contain interesting info and pointers to more of the same. So keeping a record of these could be important. - Bill Anderson via twhirl

"so keeping a record of these could be important. " - yeah google knows everything :)- - Peter Dawson

I agree on the concept, definitely. Jon Udell has been evangelizing these concepts as well for awhile; a good overview here, called "Hosted Lifebits": http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/... - Ken Kennedy

@Paul Nash I understand your point but i still disagree. web 1.0 was about one person on an island sending out bottles via email lists. Web 2.0 is about a NET of networks intertwined and dependent on each other for communication. p2p is the backbone for today's successful technology and even though twitter is centralized, it also plays a huge part in a how to business model. the discussion here is amongst content publishers and we need twitter or something like it to function properly, imho - Anthony Farrior

I'm not sure there was some huge downside to embracing Twitter. The conversation has moved to FF almost instantly given their reply problem over the past week. It seems to me that the zero switching cost of the interwebs is in full effect here. - Jason Calacanis

That's a great idea - Shey

That is an amazing idea! Absolutely brilliant :-) - Maria Reyes-McDavis via twhirl

Wow! Considering the number of such instances that one comes across; it is potentially an huge number of subjects! I'm gonna steal this idea as well! - Parth Awasthi

idea now officially stolen! Nice one Thomas! - jerry

Technically, not a street, but this is the information highway...can I have $2? You may need a 12,000,000,00mm to get my portrait though ;) - Ace

better not forget the wallet ;-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Ace, if you run into me physically on the street and ask me for it I'll give it to you. ;) - Thomas Hawk

Stolen in LA as well. - Tsega Dinka

Dobromir, my wallet and 5D go with me everywhere. And since I plan on carrying a camera around with me for the rest of my life this shouldn't be a hassle. - Thomas Hawk

Good idea. - Mary Anne Davis

I've thought about doing this - I think it would be cool if you had 3 set questions you asked each subject. This could turn into an interesting project. - Sam Purtill

I hope you didn't get a patent on this idea cause I may have to still it too :) - Sam Purtill

it was a joke Thomas I carry my wallet wherever I go too, just sometimes it's hard to find :-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

I would want more than 2 dollars :) - Photo Larry via twhirl

Need a flickr group $1 photos - Yolanda

If you caught that youtube video about fake panhandlers, beware who you give those $2 out, they could be making more than you an hour! - Colby Olson

Some people might want more than $2 and some people might not want to do it at all. But that would be their choice. I suspect others might appreciate the human interaction in addition to the money. I don't mind if a fake panhandler got $2 from me if I got his portrait. - Thomas Hawk

You could create the first location based DB with profiles for panhandlers :-) - Gabriel Biguria

I see a new flickr group in the making... $2 portraits Cool idea TH - gfurry

Beautiful idea, I love it. - Brandon Wood

PayPal me the $2 and I'll send you a photo, save you the bother of getting your camera out :-) - Anthony Burns

Gabriel, sadly that already exists. Will you guys make sure to follow through on this! I want to see these portraits. - Frankie Warren

Will beg for Flickr - TranceMist

When did the going rate for panhandling go up to $2? Now I know why they stopped asking me. I've still been giving a buck. - Kevin Shannon

Check out the 100 Strangers group on Flickr. Here's what they're doing: Step out of your comfort zone to a new level of portrait photography. Start by taking 100 portraits of people you don't know. The idea: The One Hundred Strangers project is a learning group for people who want to improve the social and technical skills needed for taking portraits of strangers and telling their stories. The method is learning by doing. The project is lots of fun and improves photojournalistic skills. During the process you might expand your every day living experience - and who knows, maybe you will even get a couple of new friends during the process. We welcome both beginner and advanced photographers. You may be new to photographing strangers or already have experience of this type of photography. The challenge: Take 100 photographs of at least 100 people you don't know. Approach a person or group of people and ask for permission to both take a photo of them and to post it to this group. Get to know your subjects. - Lisa L. Seifert

Stupid comment character limit... And the rest: Who are they? What is their life like? Try to tell a small story with each photo you take. This may be a story about the person or how you felt approaching that particular individual. You may have, for example, tried a new approach or used a new photographic technique. Try to learn something from every encounter you make. http://www.flickr.com/groups/1... - Lisa L. Seifert

Lisa, I love the 100 Strangers Group. Trejack was working on this in Las Vegas when we were there. Has anyone done it in a single day yet? - Thomas Hawk

Sounds like a good idea... - Mike Wills

you have a good heart. That's an awesome idea ! And the idea of blogging what they tell you -- that's awesome. Maybe you should put your $2 in the camera phone sleeve ... - General Kafka

Go FriendFeed!!!! EPIC WIN! - Steve Isaacs

FriendFeed was rock solid throughout. Way to go Bret, Paul, and the rest of the FriendFeed team. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I never had any doubts. Nice job, guys. - Louis Gray

Love Ya Friendfeed! - Parth Awasthi via twhirl

Indeed ! that's was very nice! Have you done anything special about this Bret? (Like twitter's folks) - directeur

very nice. anyone could guess Friendfeed would make it. - Josh via twhirl

way to keep the fail whales away - Jeremy Raines

We did move a few things around, but nothing temporary - the event inspired us to optimize a few things we had been meaning to optimize anyway. - Bret Taylor

yay scalability! - Neha Narula

Bret: Big! Congrats! You've done a very nice job ! :) - directeur

I guess that I will be hanging out with ya'll for the rest of the day. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker

FriendFeed FTW! - mathew ingram

unlike the oh so much stress Twitter will be having FriendFeed will be up and running - Outsanity

I'd like to second this notion: well done Friendfeed, you guys have your shit together and I respect that. - ryangraves

Rob (Radez) actually just said the same thing. Good work, guys! - Gabor Cselle

Even wordpress hosted sites are down! FF is well hosted and manged! - Lakshman Prasad via twhirl

well done you guys. - Tsega Dinka

Me think FriendFeed cousin Googawl... - directeur

It rocked... simply the best place for live updates. - Vince DeGeorge

FF rox! - anna awesomesauce

This was great! FF had updates faster than the folks liveblogging the event. - Jennifer Dittrich

ya, man, FriendFeed Rocks! - Ralph Poole via twhirl

Kudos..It was your stress test - Varun Mahajan

nothing beats FF! - Dieter Schwarz

FriendFeed triumphs yet again - Shey

can we have some traffic stats please? - Ivan Pope via twhirl

well done! friendfeed deserves all the hype it can get! - krz9000

Does it count as hype if it's true? - Amit Patel

Guys, I want the list too. - Jick Nan

That would be something very useful. - Jorge Cabaleiro

Just been looking for that too- thought somebody here might know :) - Mike

Yes, we need the directory. - Roger Chen

This is needed. Tired trying urls - FrenchW

I don't seem to find many that work either - Joe Dawson

http://friendfeed.com/rooms/fr... - Tom

yes, a room list would be nice ;) - Kyle Weller

Looks to me like this might be the only one - Ryne Nelson

See Jeff Clark for his Google search http://friendfeed.com/e/6bd61d... - Russellreno

can you search for rooms? - Matt Long

468 Results- http://www.google.com/search?n... - Mike Fruchter

I'm still laughing...oh man - Shey

Love it :) - Colin Walker

twitter is down again ... anybody keeping track? I think it's been 3 times in the past week. - Jason Kaneshiro

but you've been going here constantly http://istwitterdown.com/, admit it! - Melissa Pierce

Is friend feed down? (kidding kidding) - Doug Brooks

HA! And now http://istwitterdown.com is LYING to us in a feeble attempt to cover up for Twitter's shortcomings. - Nathaniel Payne

I cannot believe how unreliable it is being!!!! But it manages to fool http://istwitterdown.com/... it says no but I still cannot connect to it!!!!! - Paolo Barone

what's funny is that since i made "twitter come back" - it's been down more than ever - driving more people to my music video! :) - Allen Stern

Well it's down, and yet it's not down. I can't reach the pages properly, but I don't get time-outs either. Just a blank page. - Rosana Kooymans

it seems to happen around 4:30 / 5 or so (EST) - Tim Broder

it is down and not working for me. sux - Photo Larry

It's down BECAUSE you weren't on it. It needs your tweets to survive. - Louis Gray

I am trying...just keeps erroring out - Photo Larry

As much as I haven't really cared all that much about an hour here or there, it is starting to get to the point where I expect it is down, and that is very bad for Twitter. Now I come to friendfeed to talk with people rather than Twitter. I hope they can get things solved quickly. - Caleb Elston

@Louis - HA! Twitter's hungry for Scoble tweets! - Hutch Carpenter

louis, c'mon you know you are the force- you are the "luke" if you will - Allen Stern

AHAHAH istwitterdown.com says "of course" BAHAAHAH - Allen Stern

They have issues that are beyond out of control at this point it is hurting them badly - Todd Cochrane via twhirl

Yeah... hopefully they can get things figured out... quickly... - Adrian Nadeau

istwitterdown.com says No, Twitter still says Nuh Uh. - Marianne

Your fault still! They were fixing it for your traffic and when it ceased, their fix did not work. hehehe - Rom Feria

now istwitterdown does not respond... do we need a "istwitterdownDown" service? :-) - andrea

LOL. Robert has an alibi - Bwana McCall

is boycotting twitter today cuz it wont work - Photo Larry

i already thought you tried to export your followers to friendfeed or something … - kosmar

@kosmar yea I found an import tool so guess no big loss. Just was starting to like twitter and its been down 2 days now so its annoying me - Photo Larry

scobleizer, okay - though, tell the guys at friendfeed thats their big opportunity now ;-) - michael h

One benefit of the Twit-Out. I didn't know until now (3:00 pm PDT) that Twitter went down today. My life is more peaceful as a result. - Ontario Emperor

If FriendFeed goes down today... guess who we're blaming? - Vince DeGeorge

I was gonna be a dick and go to twitter to say I didn't hear about the twit-out on twitter but on a blog (note: useless use of the internet), but it was down, so now I can be all smug and whatnot and go back to doing stuff. Well, that, and talking about Twitter on Friendfeed and how we are using Friendfeed for this. And you WONDER why no one makes money? Cuz we are retards, srlsy. - Eric Rice

Wait....what? :) - Bwana McCall

Its gotten so bad that "istwitterdown" had to update their site to say "Of Course" - Nik Butler

to spin bless you eric for saying that. Indicates you are prolly a little less reatrded. That is a good thing. - Mark Forman

can we blame you for facebook being down? - Jeff Quinton

Just don't bring your voodoo to FF! ;) - Anthony Farrior

That's why. :) - TranceMist