I'm delighted for the FriendFeed founders, but am not sure what this will mean for the continuation of FriendFeed as a platform, and the continuation of rooms like the Science 2.0 room. There's a lot of overlap with Facebook. - Michael Nielsen

The reason for using Friendfeed instead of Facebook for groups like this one is that the features are so much better. If those capabilities are brought to Facebook, what reason would their be against migrating to that platform? - Mike Chelen

Don't be shy, Neil. - Michael Nielsen

Neil: user interface is indeed one of FF's biggest advantages over FB and other sites. if the FF team is able to bring this standout feature to FB then it will represent a huge improvement in usability. that is a big "if" though - Mike Chelen from IM

I am taking a "let's see what happens" approach, but definitely integrated into FB as is would not be something I'd like - Deepak Singh

Ah, that's a pity. The move doesn't seem well received by the FF community, which says something about FB. Maybe something could be built on top of google's wave. - Alexei from Nambu

I don't want to be one of those conservative "I don't embrace change" types -- but I am also very worried. Facebook has a different vibe/purpose then Friendfeed (not to mention privacy concerns/stupid applications/advertising), and I would prefer to keep my two account-worlds separate (I have been keeping my Facebook profile private); Mike Chelen, I do hope that you're right, that all this will do is bring all of what makes FriendFeed excellent to Facebook, but I suppose the track record of acquired companies' technologies and the differences between the two sites makes me doubtful. - Benjamin Tseng

I second the motion to move rooms such as this one over to a wave-based thingamajig.... - Wladimir Labeikovsky

might we test that on shareflow? prob is of course that only 5 Flows are supported by the free version... but perhaps it would be good if some "beta-testers" would look around on that platform. We might formulate ideas how to organize all later on wave. - Phil

Let's wait for Google Wave. - Enrico Guarnera

Benjamin: the characterization as a talent acquisition provides some hope in that expertise is more meaningful than a particular piece of software. if this means that the ff staff has a wider, more significant effect on users through fb - Mike Chelen

Jo: yeah that is a problem with facebook's friend model. there is sort of a workaround with fan pages, however it is currently far less intuitive than on twitter or friendfeed. will facebook improve the flexibility of their model, with friendfeed team's help? - Mike Chelen

ReComment from Abhishek's post: Oh noes. How long before you need a Facebook account to log in to FriendFeed? I don't intend to sign up to those intrusive spammers any time soon. Where's the 'Dislike' button? - Andrew Clegg

I know someone who built a framework that could become a FF replacement with just a little bit of modification. I told him about the sentiment among the science folks here and he was interested. I will let you know if he agrees to do the modifications. Please keep commenting on what a FF replacement should (and should not) feel like. - Lisa Green

I've been holed up in the lab and off friendfeed for about a month now, and so I'm probably looking at this acquisition from a different perspective than I would have a couple months ago. But when I first heard the news I wasn't worried. How was FF going to survive without a sale anyway? Maybe Facebook will decide to keep the FF platform, but actually try to make money from it. Is there a place for constructive optimism as far as our broad science community goes? We never had control over this community in the first place (remember the panic over "real-time" a few months ago). Now, we still don't have control, but we at least have some clarity. My gut tells me that we can keep the community going via this platform for quite a while -- and that leaving now is not the best answer. Oh, BTW: I am biased in that I like using Facebook too :) - Steve Koch