Wondering if the new Friendfeed update has gone... - Steve Rubel

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Wondering if the new Friendfeed update has gone too far. Is it too fast for y'all? It's almost like having one cup of coffee too many!

April 6 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Stacy LaRoche, charlie magruder, Moses Kpetigo and 74 other people liked this

I'm literally getting a headache. - Dawn

I'm going to go take some Speed and run on a treadmill so to slow things down a bit. - Will Higgins™

lol! yeah too fast! - Capn' One Eye - adrift

it's too fast and I'm not sure I like the whole idea of it. what do you think about the design? - Orli Yakuel

nah. listslistslists - Marcel Weiß

Mine is fine... lists ftw - Bwana ☠

Anything that gives Dawn a headache is good. Heheh. - Robert Scoble

It's unusable for me, and I shouldn't have to use lists to make the service usable. There should be an option to determine how quickly your feed refreshes. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

That's not too big an ask really. Also, lists are going to be pivotal, so I think the easier it is to make them, the more successful this will be. - Will Higgins™

there needs to be smarter filtering to help the flow...it should setup some lists for me automatically - Jason Stephens

If you follow thousands of people, you most certainly should be using lists to make the service usable. - Bwana ☠

the biggest problem I have is it takes away from conversations. I LOVED the old interface so much better. It allowed me to control my pace of conversations without feeling like I've missed something. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Anything that does not teach you patience, is not your friend. - Melanie Reed

This is too fast. They need to let you control the speed. - Steve Rubel from IM

Too fast without pause. Adds a step that I didn't have to add before. Jury remains out. - Martha

am i missing something? doesn't seem that different to me. then again, i don't use it much, and i don't subscribe to that many people's feeds. so maybe if you're a friendfeed 'power user', it's too much, but for 'lite' usage, it may not be that much different. UPDATE: Ok, now I am on the right URL. I like the look, and it's not flowing too fast for me. Again, I think the subscribe-to-everyone types are going to have a different experience than us 'lite' friendfeed users. - Dwight Silverman

One thing to keep in mind is the burst of activity caused by the release. A zillion snap judgments pouring in at once will probably not be the daily norm. - Mark Czerniec

pause is your friend you know although I'm starting to enjoy the run with the realtime feed - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Robert: Then you're GOOD! :) Ha. - Dawn

Also, I'm going to have to start unfollowing more people. This style of realtime really makes the boors stand out. - Will Higgins™

way too fast is my early verdict. I cannot even appreciate someone's comment and perhaps subscribe to them. I think this is going to negatively affect the number of subscriptions to other commenter - Lou Paglia

Thankfully I've obsessively organized my FF subscriptions already by lists and weeded out the noise makers, otherwise I'd been overwhelmed. So far I kind of like the new FF UI. Remember if the speed is too much there is always a pause button. - Keith - @tsudo

This is a breaking point for the real-time web. I bet Friendfeed will have to go back to the old system (but keep the design). - Steve Rubel

Bwana, that is the way you choose to use FF. Others choose to not use lists and this method was perfectly usable in the standard interface. I thought the whole selling point of FF was that its UI was flexible enough to accommodate the different ways people choose to use the service. An aggregator, content creator, community hub... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

@Steve - very interesting thought. We all want real-time to a point. - Dave Hodson

This is WAAAYYY to fast - Anthony K. Valley ©

Steve: Pause does exactly that. - Robert Scoble

I tend to agree with you (perhaps two interfaces running in parallel, one for normal users and one for power users) - Lou Paglia

Steve, have you worked out where you specify the syncing between Twitter publishing on the new interface yet? Don't want to overload my Twitter stream . . . :-) - Ed Richardson

Yeah, I can't keep up. But might just take some getting used to. - Mike Janicke

You just have to click "Pause" as soon as you want to start reading stuff. I wonder if that shows that real-time as default is not a good idea. - Alejandro

Too fast to furious! - Ninh Nguyen

I just let it wash over me, like twitter. These real-time updates aren't meant to be read, but dipped into and experienced. - Dave Sanders

I agree. Look, humans are not machines. The ability of my eyes to track all this moving text (both reading and writing) has limitations. It will inevitably induce eye strain. And telling people to pause and unpause in order to manage this make life harder, not easier. - Carter Rabasa

i kinda like the speed... - FRANK CHEUNG

I just landed on this post, and I see what you are talking about. I actually like the speed. It doesn't seem like most topics will be as hot as this one (so the average case will be slower). - Adam Loving

I also only follow 77 people - I'm not sure I'm following the people who talk a lot. Need to play with it some more. Looking for recommendations of who to subscribe to. - Dave Sanders

Carter: most humans don't have more than 20 friends. In which case this will move just fine. - Robert Scoble

I agree with Robert... when you have a reasonable amount of friends, the speed is fine...when you have thousands, I don't think you have a choice: You must organize your friends. - Bwana ☠

There's always conversations here regarding what it would take to get more "average" or typical web users on to FriendFeed and I think this is the exact type of thing that will keep those people away. Most people I know wouldn't want to have to bother setting up filters or lists just to keep from feeling like they're having a nervous breakdown looking at their feed. And if they don't set up lists/filters, they'll end up only seeing the same super active users all day. - Kate

I love it! it is exactly what I wish Twitter was, a constant stream - Rodzilla

I don't think I follow enough people to have a real speed issue on the new FF. I do like live streams though so I think the speed is ok. I really have neglected my filters though and need to spend some time getting things organized. - Sean Brady

I've seen stats that show Facebook is around 120 friends Scoble, Dunbar number is around 150. Also in FF people follow those that are not their true friends - Jeremiah Owyang

The old design gave me a headache. This new one makes me nauseous. I thought FriendFeed had so much potential when they launched, but their design aesthetic and product preferences just don't work for me. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing. That said, I'm sure other people like Scoble will like it. - Joe Lazarus

Exactly Jeremiah. I subscribe to plenty of people who are not friends in the traditional sense of the word, but because they post things I'm interested in. Everyone I've introduced to (ie: forced to sign up for) FriendFeed immediately asked me where to go to find more people to subscribe to. - Kate

There is quite a lot of data coming into FriendFeed assuming multiple streams per person followed. - Khürt Williams

Its time for you guys to make lists. I'm following 11.5k people and I'm struggling badly. I'm making lists now :) - Nicholas James

I have lists and I am still dizzy! - Steve Rubel from IM

I just got hammered with a billion updates from the same user. Unfollowed. - Shaine Mata

Make *more* lists! Seriously, they've turned it from a tool for info junkies into something that will be much more popular. - Ian Betteridge

Shaine: do NOT just unfollow people like this. You MUST block them. That removes them from the system. - Robert Scoble

I personally use lists, so I guess it could be OK (except that it makes my "home" feed useless - way too fast.) But interesting that you sort of *have* to use lists w/the new version...way to dictate how to use the product, FF. - Sarah Perez

I feel the same way. - tony

If people only use FriendFeed to keep up with their friends, then Facebook wins. They own that realm. - Hutch Carpenter

Ditches features we were used to, add some nobody asked for, uses space in the stupidest way, it's all-round ugly. try again. - Zio Bonino

I think that Friendfeed should only update real time when I am at the top of the page. If I am scrolled down, don't updated it. Comments Real-Time though is a very nice feature. - Tyler (Chacha)

In the time it took to write this comment, 28 things were lined up. So, I got bombarded. - Tyler (Chacha)

Although, you can always switch to the non-real time version - Tyler (Chacha)

Zio: I disagree. - Robert Scoble

I am torn. My mind will take time to process this. - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty

Gonna be a learning curve. Not as bad when I tried out Twitterfall. - Matt Martin

Not quite sure yet, but I like that there is a "pause" button in the upper right corner of the feed. - Craig Villamor

I needed maybe 5 minutes to get used to it (and the @ajbatac userscript to fix the look). still adjusting, but I think it's making me more efficient. I love the new filters - better than just lists - Gaby K. Slezák

Robert: I know you disagree. But you know, I'm very open to change, I *love* change. But this is a step backwards, I'm kinda sure. - Zio Bonino

I think it's funny. I've been saying since the beginning to be careful who you follow here. Now everyone is learning why. Zio, it's a HUGE step forward. But I can see how you think it's a step back. Hit "pause" and relax. - Robert Scoble

I'm not talking about the refresh rate, Robert, it's all the rest. (I'm way faster than that) :) - Zio Bonino

we will learn and get faster and smarter with it. there´s no other chance in the web anyways. and if the brain aches, it´s only growing ;) - esther ♥ ♫

So many thoughts...but in answer to your question, the stream moves quite quickly. This is fairly familiar since I use Twitterfall to follow events or themes. But I have always used Friendfeed as the place for a deeper and richer discussion forum. The spin rate certainly makes that less palatable. - Lorin Olsen

I agree with Zio Bonino. - Niki Costantini

It's a conversation killer, and what I love more in FF is the chance to have real conversations... One year ago before the comments thing was introduced, FF was totally a dead place. What brought it to life was all the talk around the different entries. - Niki Costantini

I'm beginning to understand the new UI. It's not about the speed at all it's about refining your interests and generating lists of topics from the people you subscribe to. - Russ Jackson

I still think it it needs better organizational navigation. - Russ Jackson

Russ, they should be able to make suggestions and compile lists on the fly. - Steve Rubel

mine is slow - Dave "Freedom 35"

Great point Steve. They should be able to do that and that would make for easier navigation - Russ Jackson

It was in the beginning, but now that things have calmed down its good with me. - Mathew™ - LEW-OU-IS-VILLE

Use the filters (they now get saved to a list on the left hand side), Track what you want from the Firehose. New design is there to help customize the experience for everyone. - zeroinfluencer

Thanks for the feedback, Steve. I think one of the main things I want to accomplish during this beta testing period is making the defaults right and making some things stream in by default, but scaling that back if your are subscribed to a lot of stuff. All this discussion is extremely useful to help us figure that out, and I am confident we can eventually make it work well for you... - Bret Taylor

@Brett and so am I! - Steve Rubel

spoke to soon - it's zipping by - head hurts - Dave "Freedom 35"

going from FriendFeed to anywhere else feels like jumping off a trampoline - Brian Frank

If it's to fast why not just pause the updates. - Benjamin

I would pause the updates but then I feel like I'm not keeping up with the Joneses - Russ Jackson

If you pause the updates, it permanently turns off the updating—even if you log out and log back in—until you press the play icon. In the meantime, you can still see updates by refreshing the page. There is a separate pause option for your home feed and any of your filters. - Ana

@Brett, me too. This is what a beta launch is all about after all. Some really good stuff in here too. - Kate

stuff I like best: filters. I used to use bookmarks for my favorite searches. stuff I like less: the UI. I hate that grey, but I thought the vertical bar was useless and a waste of space even in the previous version. those rounded corners are so two years ago. those pictures before every post look so fuckin' facebook, they really really suck. When you post a link it's separated from the linked text, this feels like twitter, and if you feel it's a step forward, please see a doctor asap. :) - Zio Bonino

The problem is not just that real-time is a step in the wrong direction; it is drawing energy away from those problems with the Friendfeed UI which require the most urgent attention. - Sean McBride

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love friendfeed. But I didn't expect it to become a sort of facebook for people who can actually read. - Zio Bonino

http://www.drizzle.com/~lostbo... - Karim

Lol, Karim :D - Zio Bonino

FriendFeed is making me dizzy - B.L. Ochman

Use lists (filters). ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

I just joined Friendfeed, so I'm still unsure if it adds value to my Social Networking experience. My initial reaction is that it's interface is a marriage of the the features I dislike most about all the services I registered! - Stacy LaRoche

Nice to have you join, Stacy. Are you using the standard friendfeed.com interface, or the new beta.friendfeed.com interface? I'm intrigued to hear the perspective of someone who is new to the service... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Does the new interface have a Mini-window option? - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

It's way too fast for me. I know some people suggest using lists, but having a bunch of lists, each in its own Firefox window, chews up system resources faster than a puppy with a slipper. It'd be really nice to have FriendFeed 1.0's slow but steady updating as an option, rather than just Fast Forward and Pause. - Chris, Without Direction

I love the realtime view, that's the only one I watch. - Richard A.

I like the beta, but I think they are too much ambitious for the moment. They forgot that friendfeed is an agregator before all (for the moment!) - Stanislas Jourdan

" one cup of coffee too many!" I don't understand this statement, is a cup smaller than pot? Is three pots to many? - John D Reasor

not feeling too fast to me, but i don't really have the volume. background grey's a bit dark, though :-/ - immaterial

I agree - this is a real challenge - Gerd Leonhard

Its slowed down for me compared to yesterday. Thats cause I have 84 subscriptions (only). LOL - Praveen Vasudev

Awesome but do agree with @karl that API is key. - Moses Kpetigo

I'd like a way to move my entire home feed to a different list in one step. The ability to do something like "Move all all who have used "Second Life" in a message into a Second Life group would be useful. - Chuck Baggett