Shane O › Likes

Haha, that's funny. - jjprojects

Well, actually twitter launched japanese translated interface last month though, when you switch to japanese interface, Google Ad-sence also appears. - browneyes

But no US .com business plan yet. Their recent stability would be perfect with this plan, but then we might never see uptime again. ;-) - Andrew Dobrow

That's pretty amusing. :) - lilbyrdie

This is more than amusing :) - Yuvi

Inspired! - Mykl Roventine

Sounds familiar! http://friendfeed.com/e... - Louis Gray

There is the Twitter 2 Friend Feed Importer for Windows @ http://internetducttape.com/2008... - Mark Warren

Len, the best I found was this windows app; far from being perfect, but the best I have found: http://internetducttape.com/2008... - Daniel Robitaille

In last couple of weeks I have been oscillating between only using Twitter, or only using FF. But now I'm thinking I'm going into the FF camp full time. But only after creating imaginary friends for all the twitter people I follow who are sadly not on FF. - Daniel Robitaille

Does anyone know of a way to auto publish ff notes to twitter for mac? It seems like this is the last thing FF needs to keep me over here full time. - Andrew Baron

Spot on. Thanks for the ffapps mention ;) - Aviv

Nice. I'm the Johnny Appleseed of FriendFeed. ;) - Jason Shellen

Prediction: in one year from now the majority of FriendFeeders will be getting their FF fix (AKA consuming their FriendFeed flow) using alternative interfaces built upon the raw-by-design FF platform. - Aviv

From the article: "Friendfeed essentially renders Twitter obsolete. Steve Gillmor is wrong. The only need for Twitter is for legacy purposes. The same audience that made Twitter is slowly migrating over to Friendfeed because Friendfeed has what Twitter has, but its better and there is a lot more." - Mike Reynolds

One of the better articles I've seen written on FF lately. - Thomas Hawk

"The only need for Twitter is for legacy purposes." extremely well argued - Duncan Riley from twhirl

Thanks for the great comments yall, makes me wish I had more time to write more! - Andrew Baron

Great argument. I linked this on my twitter. - Sarah Austin

very well done andrew & agree would be nice to have the auto publish to twitter while on mac, when on windows its useful - i can't see abandoning twitter just yet but the usability of friendfeed it much richer rivaled by the diversity of input methods (when working) and the simplicity of twitter - be really nice to have both working well frankly :) - mike "glemak" dunn

I think you're wrong Andrew. Twitter itself is hard for people to grok, but they get there eventually. FriendFeed is an order of magnitude harder to understand. This technologically superior service will not compete with twitter once Twitter gets it's act together. It's VHS versus Betamax all over again. - AJCann

AjCann, I can understand your feeling about this and it may be that you only have a desire to use Twitter to broadcast tweets in a one way fashion or only go one level deep with people. Thats fine. I think a small subset of people will continue to want that. But the reason why FF is picking up steam as a Twitter replacement is not because we all don't like Twitter, or just want to have fun. Its happening because its a natural evolution. - Andrew Baron

What I don't get about FriendFeed is… it seems to mostly aggregate stuff from other sites, right? And right now, Twitter is the one most people are using for their "microblogging." But it doesn't show all your tweets. If you tweet a lot, it shows a small fraction of your tweets. How do my messages get out? - Jesse Baer

Sorry, I don't agree with that either Andrew. FF is basically an aggregator, although the recent addition of commenting complicates the picture. The reason FF has had the big boost lately is due to the chronic instability of Twitter rather than the inherent qualities of FF. I'm not knocking FF - it's good, stable and improving. But it's not a replacement for Twitter, it's a different beast. - AJCann

Can someone help me - how do I link to this thread on FriendFeed? Thanks. - AJCann

yes, use the "More" feature. Select "link to this entry" and then copy the URL from your address bar. - Robert Scoble

Thanks Robert. - AJCann

Another n00bie here. I loved the article and am trying to get my friendfeed onto my blog to join the revolution. How do I embed the friendfeed widget into my wordpress template. Do I need a javascript plug-in? - ViralReality

Many of the bloggers I read have yet to sign-on to Friendfeed and I agree with Gillmor that Twitter is driving this bus. - paul mooney

Paul, if they have yet to sign-on, then they are simply late to transfer to the next bus. Its okay, there will be another bus behind this one. - Andrew Baron

I really like what FF is doing, but what many people forget is the advantage of SMS texting to and mass mailing from Twitter. Twitter as some form of IM client seems silly in my eyes. I see it more as an SMS2.0 rather than IM2.0. FF is completely different from Twitter. - CannonGod

FF seems aimed more towards some form of Blogging2.0 (yes, I'll stop using '2.0' from this point - I promise!). What FF needs to work on now is making it's commenting system integrate with the blogs that they link to. So then all my Flickr, YouTube, Twitter comments matter on the grand scheme of things - and reduces redundancy. Also better levering of the 'liking' system that can possibly relate to the blog's Page Rank? - CannonGod

Twitter is only for legacy purposes? Call me crazy, but I can think of two or three features Twitter has that FriendFeed still lacks. That's why people aren't coming over here in droves. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that FriendFeed is overtaking Twitter when it's the same people saying it over and over. Twitter is alive and well, problems or not. - Shawn Farner

Len: Take the plunge! I've made the switch & I'm loving FF! - Thomas Ho from fftogo

I agree, FriendFeed will go mainstream if people start using more of these online services - Justin Yost

I just keep the site open and refresh a lot. - Robert Scoble

That was an awesome and relevant post! Thanks Rob! - Drew Lucas

I use twhirl for updates - Aura Mae from twhirl

I use twhirl, but it keeps moving the screen while I'm typing if there is an update. Hence these random bits of comment you get sometimes... - Rah-PM 2012 from twhirl

Using twhirl also. Just not enough screen space there, and things to roll off. Web page is easier. - Todd Jordan

Well said Robert, good article on why FriendFeed will go mainstream. - Mike Reynolds

FF is definitely gonna need a better interface if it IS going to be useable by non-geeks - Rah-PM 2012

I was thinking the same thing, Jason. I don't think my mom would ever be able to handle FF, but I'm sure most geeks/social media addicts will love it and it will be a success - Rah-PM 2012

my mom is not a good design test case i doubt anyone's mom is- the person who wants to be highly digitally connected, is. - Nathan Eckenrode

Robert, I know you didn't intend it, but your two part piece is a great friendfeed newbie tutorial. Thanks. Also, again don't know if it was intentional, but you forgot to include this friendfeed user: http://friendfeed.com/hillary ;-) - Robert Stevens

Robert Stevens that user needs to engage people with the tools as adults who vote not speakat them like children who must be contained. - Nathan Eckenrode

Well, my mom is a programmer and uses online communications to coordinate her team, so I guess she is not the most common "mom" example :) - Rah-PM 2012 from twhirl

Nathan Eckenrode absolutely right about that user needing to engage. Check her friendfeed page. Not a single subscription. - Robert Stevens

and not everyone's mom is theprototypical bumbler that frequently gets assigned t that architypical user group - Nathan Eckenrode

it does make a good friendfeed tutorial, but I don't think it's going mainstream without a serious interface improvement. Its ass ugly! - Justin Flood @justinflood from twhirl

It's not even that it's ugly, it's that it's not really useable. I think it was created to provide as much as possible, but with the understanding that someone would create decent filters/clients for it for regular consumption. - Rah-PM 2012

I this that whether FF goes mainstream depends mostly on us. - funkyboy

My thoughts - http://www.toddrjordan.com/thebroa... - Todd Jordan

@PatrickJordan - using Twhirl client. - Todd Jordan

Well said. Not entirely certain I agree or disagree with your thoughts, but either way you do present a compelling argument for FF. I think the number one reason that will hold back adoption of a mainstream FF is the benefit to the average user. Unless that is articulated so the *average user* can understand, they will not see the desire to attach themselves to another service. The question at this point is what can, or should, FF do to attract average users? - Scott Jarkoff

@ScottJarkoff - well, partnerships would help. When you sign up for a service, if that service had a check box to add that feed to Friendfeed, it'd be a done deal. - Todd Jordan

@Todd: Agreed. But that begs the question, how would such a partnership benefit the service you're signing up for? There has to be some mutual benefit to a partnership like that. The obvious benefit is for FF, but what does everyone else gain through such an arrangement? - Scott Jarkoff

Scott: I'm not so sure that FriendFeed should worry TOO much about that right now. Instead, make the system of great utility to advanced users like me and you. If they make it easy for me to get rid of the noise and present it to everyone else, then it'll take off. - Robert Scoble

Why FriendFeed WON'T Go Mainstream: 1.) in the mainstream, people don't want to be THIS informed. That's probably equally good for them, and good for those of us who do want to be this informed! 2.) Steve Case subscribed, friended some people and then...didn't engage at all. He's my go-to guy for what the mainstream will eat up like ice cream. - Robert Seidman

Robert: But how does such usage translate over to the average user? Just because us mega-geeks can use FF, and more importantly we can understand it, does not mean that the average user will comprehend why it is useful to them. _Something_ needs to bridge that gap, no? - Scott Jarkoff

Last night I tried to explain FriendFeed and even Twitter to my friend the cop. While he has a Facebook profile, He Just. Didn't. Get It. The harder I tried to explain, the more he just looked at me like I just landed from Venus. - Capn' One Eye - adrift

FF can't go mainstream and I said as much in my comment on your blog post, which is awaiting moderation I guess :(. Main point - I could never explain FF to any of my non techy friends...never - Jennifer Van Grove from twhirl

Alert Thingy helps with the interface 'issues'. I think it has really helped with adoption / holding onto users - John Duff from Alert Thingy

@Geoff Longman - we are from Venus! ;-) welcome to my planet! - Susan Beebe

No doubt FF will go mainstream. It must over come the too many sites back lash, but over time this is a winner. - Russellreno