Louis writes "While some continue to debate whether one service will kill another, or what it will take to bring a product into the mainstream, I can easily say as one of the most visible and active users, the population has changed, away from an eclectic group of uber-engineers to something more recognizable: peers of all backgrounds. It should be interesting to see just what the service looks like by the end of the year, or next June. Could be dramatically different again." - Russellreno via Bookmarklet
This is a must read if you want some perspective on the short life of Friendfeed. - Russellreno
I was an early beta user of FF on Facebook, but I was losing interest when I discovered Louis and his love for FF. That is when I first logged on directly to the web site and watched wave after wave of new subscribers arrive. Excellent write up Louis. - Russellreno
I am definitely late to the friendfeed world, but I am very glad it exists. I have gained so much perspective on social media in the last month that would have been impossible without this service - gregory
@gregory - so true. I am not a part of the social media scene, but wholly fascinated by it and find FF to be such an eye-opener. FF has done more than any other service, blog or media outlet ever has for my awareness of social media and so many other subjects. - JA Castillo
Added you. Also new to FF. I think it might be information overload, though... - John Storer II via twhirl
I added you two weeks ago. Guys and Gals - use the hide button to reduce the info overload. - Russellreno
yea I am trying to figure out how to make my friend feed posts go out to twitter - Jason Stephens
Jason: why? post to twitter and bring them in. - klecu
klecu: because then I have to leave friendfeed, I want to do everything in here...when I share I want it to go out to all my services too.... - Jason Stephens
I think you've got it backwards. FriendFeed is drawing in everything, not sending out. - John Storer II via twhirl
exactly my point...I think it could be a twitter replacement though...i like posting to hear better then posting on twitter. I'd like the messages I share on here to go out to my twitter followers to help grow my subscriber list - Jason Stephens
So is it Ping.fm that does that (posts to Twitter) then, not FriendFeed? - Jeff Kopp
That is, of course, a very valid example. Unfortunately, It's sort of like the AIM/ICQ Fiasco. All your friends are on AIM... why should they switch, even when AIM now sucks? I just got into FF, so I am not sure it could handle the excess traffic like twitter is dealing with. - John Storer II via twhirl
The method to comment and reply is much better on friendfeed, I think this definitly should either be bought by twitter or find a way to cross integrate them better. I see the option to "also send this comment as an @reply twitter from jpstephens" but thats not EXACTLY what I mean - Jason Stephens
Jason: I totally agree, if you can post out to all your socials then someone tell me how. If not, then FF should have the option or I smell yet another social network for social networks. ;) - Mark
You could try Mahalo share to post to a lot of your socials at once, but wouldn't this create a bit of a spam effect to FF if all of those socials are showing up here? Interested to hear comments from anyone with that experience, because of course you don't want to spam your FF friends, but not everyone is using FF... conundrum - Dave Earley
Glad you got it Kevin. Friendfeed lends it self to more engaging conversation and sharing. - Larry Kless
Problem is, you have to Friend back. :) - l0ckergn0me
Did Scoble block you for begging for followers? - Ryan Kuder
yeah there's real potential. but it's so damn hard to manage your friend list! same as with twitter - this is a huge barrier to the usability of the site. there should be a subscribe/unsubscribe button next to every post from anybody. - Mickipedia
Friendfeed is awesome Kev. Everything at your fingertips. - Vipin Chamakkala
This is a common refrain - people admitting that it takes them months to get FriendFeed. And for those of us who aren't honest enough to publicly admit this, it takes us months to use FriendFeed effectively. Is there a way to reduce this learning curve, so people can productively use FriendFeed from day 1? - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
There are all sorts of things they could do to improve FriendFeed. I guess we have to remember it is version 1.0 - Jonathan Beckett
You don't get it Kevin unless you're willing to friend us back. I believe same goes for Twitter. Why add you to our community if you're not willing to listen to us? - Jesse Stay
So the question now is: Will Kevin friend us back? All of us? Or selective friending? - Winston Teo
I think it's amazing how twins stay the same weight and are so close to each other. - Michael Narciso
That would just blow my mind if I walked onto that train. - Jay Martin
What a creative and fun project. would have been fun to have stumbled upon this as it was being executed. - Jeff P. Henderson
@Michael I've know a pair of twins for a long time. They were identical when we were all children but now one is reed thin and the other is huge! They aren't very identical now! - Rahul Das
Poor suckers! Where I work, not only do we get to get to pay too much for our food (as compared to nearby organizations), most of us also have the privilege of paying our employer for a non-guaranteed parking space! Envy me! - MiniMage
i never took advantage of my friend's invitations when he was there. :| - edythe
that's because you are a good person edythe, and i am shameless. WILL DATE FOR FREE FOOD! - Mona N
When I went out to Google for a visit, I was sure to try their food. had momo's and it was so much better than our cafeteria at work and it was free. - Andrea Baker
Ok that's kinda pissing me off. :-) That's just not fair. LOL - Brian Carter
thinking of the Andale on campus...good stuff - Rick Bucich via twhirl
Brian: You should see the breakroom INSANE - Mona N
I wish more companies had the same work philosophies Google has. Allowing them to have free food is genius. Google gets to keep more of their workers in close proximity and I'm pretty sure most stay later at the office for dinner too. free good food = happy productive employees. - Michael Narciso
IMO, it's management 101. employees(perks + positive work environment) + deadline driven employees = happier employees / phenomenal work results - Mona N
^btw the 'happier employees / phenomenal work results is supposed to be a fraction =| - Mona N
My company gives away free red vines... does that count? *sigh* - Michael Narciso
WHAAATTT Red Vines FTW! I don't know about you, but I think I can eat a whole bucket of Red Vines. But I can't find anyone who's willing to do it with me. - Mona N
“It's interesting to me how the "a-list" are freaking out about losing control. Why? Because friendfeed and everything else is loosening in their hold and leveling the playing field. This is why you see so many clammoring for followers. It reminds me of why sites...”
like Revenews failed as a meta blog years ago because people no longer needed a meta blog to blog. Anyone could do it. The same is true with what were seeing now. Anyone can be an "a-lister" and be part of the conversation and get tons of followers and get known. The lines of fame are fading fast for the elite. I think that's a good thing. No offense to those at the top, I'm just saying. - Jim Kukral
I think you need to clarify what you mean by a-list because there are significant portions of the proverbial a-list who are not doing this. The ones that are are the ones who have relied soley on their political capital as "entrepreneurs" and don't engage anywhere, really, except on Diggnation. :) - Aaron Brazell
Hmmm. I think the opposite is going on. There is great concentration of influence in a relatively small group of A-listers. The current crop of social media tools is widening the attention/influence wealth gap. - John McCrea
Aaron, you know who I'm talking about. Nothing against them, but before things like Twitter and Friendfeed, it was easy for them to remain "on top". But tools like these have really leveled the playing field. If you put in the effort to work these channels you can rise quickly and get "known". That's all I'm saying. - Jim Kukral
And by the way, I'm not a-list. I'm z-list, according to Feldman anyway :), and yes, I do clamor for followers on my blog and other places. Well, I promote my signups at least. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. - Jim Kukral
Ya I'm not saying it's not happening but I haven't seen it- maybe because I'm not paying attention to these A-listers, in which case, I have humorously underlined part of your comment :-) - Brian Carter
I see FriendFeed, twitter and other social networking tools putting those of us who aren't on the a-list on the same footing as the so called a-listers. A tool on the Internet is doing just what the Internet did for small business, solos and for people who work at home, narrowing the gap to large business. - Grant Griffiths via twhirl
Social networking tools narrow the gap between a-listers and the non-a-listers. But you still have to be willing to take advantage of the tools available. You can't just stand by and hope the tools available will just work because they are there. - Grant Griffiths via twhirl
I choose subscriptions based on a core-perimeter model. The core are people whose interests I know overlap with my own. But I also try to have a strong perimeter - very high quality information sources across a wide variety of areas. So I read blogs by people like Robin Hanson (economist), Terry Tao (mathematician), Ethan Zuckerman (developing world), etc. Unfortunately, FriendFeed usage still seem to be mostly concentrated in a few areas. - Michael Nielsen
Michael, it will get more interesting over time. Waiting for the synthesizer geeks to show up :) - Deepak
Michael, that is one of the best comments I've seen on FF. - David Gutelius
This is true with most things in life. Your real friends, the sites you visit, etc. Why is this so shocking? Just saying... :P - James Mowery via twhirl
it's not shocking... It's justa useful quote that sums up the service... ;) - Chris Messina
I know, but, it could be applied to every social network: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube. Even forums and such. I'm sure the Bret guy is smart, but I mean... yeah. - James Mowery via twhirl
Yeah, I'm being really picky about what I read on FriendFeed. Trying to master the "hide" functionality like so many have suggested to filter out the not-so-useful stuff. :D - James Mowery via twhirl
one change that I'd do on the page: Facebook gets bigger and BIGGER but if you superpoke me one more time I'll break your f**ing finger... - Orli Yakuel
that headless plurk dog still creeps me out when i see it. just sayin' - Christine Lu
impressed with self-imagined broken middle fingers across the web :) - silpol
@christinelu bone insted head does not stand for "this is dog" - it might be a headless pig... other animals on your page looks nonetheless creepy - silpol
Ya, Tamar, I find myself wondering if I'm spamming sometimes, but to tell Twitter friends and Sphinn friends and FriendFeed friends about a post, I find I'm creating some redundancy- multiple relevant FF rooms, and probably some friends who see my notifications about it several times. The line between anonymous and annoying can be thin. But we also all know you sometimes have to see something repeatedly to really see it or to take action. - Brian Carter
J. Phil, haha I need a FriendFeed for my FriendFeed. - Andrew Meyer
Happy to help. The funny thing is, I bookmark all coverage equally. So anybody who wants similar traffic... all they have to do is link my way. It's quite democratic. :-) - Louis Gray
Yeah ... Louis' links are 'sticky' too :) - Charlie Anzman
haha. I typed "thank you" and Plurk then told me that only the author could write on the post. Phooey. - Tamar Weinberg
Yeah...I set it to no comments, because I didn't know how to construct a long plurk without it being broken up by other responses. Sorry :-) - Shane Floyd
Philip, you've been promoting my scripts more than I do myself. LOL! Thank you so much. - Hao Chen
The FF stats are a great mini snapshot of 10 people we find the most interesting. We all can agree on one thing, the stats are lacking
and could use a significant overhaul. - Mike Fruchter
good "seeding" as this grows, it will be nice to see more defined lists based on subject. - Nice Fish Films
The friendfeed code has been fixed, you'll need to grab it and embed it on your blog again. - Orli Yakuel
The problem with the Feedflare is that it searches. Looks like that when a post appears on FF it's not indexed yet. Or is it just me? i.e. it works on older posts but not on those I have just published (and have already appeared on FF) - Zio Bonino
I wasted my day with this code. the feedflare worked great... but I want it the way Pat Hawks blog does it. Waaaaah! - Noah David Simon
I'm going to be trying this out later on my Tumlelog. Have been trying ineffectually to code up a version based on the WordPress plug-in, but to no avail! :( - Jake Fudge via twhirl
installed the feedflare but does not seem to push down the friendfeed feedbacks to myblog. - ouriel
Can someone please get this to work with wordpress ( and wordpress.com)??? - Roberto Bonini
I couldn't get that shit working except in feedflare, but I am more curious if anyone else figured out how to get Seesmic working in Blogger. that dudes blog has some cool gadgets. - Noah David Simon
thx Aldon i love coComment but it ain't workin w/ FireFox 3 - Billy Warhol
I still can't get this working. Am I a dumb ass? using blogger and I don't want to evolve - Noah David Simon
Hey FriendFeed, 99% of your users don't know where the store is because there's no link to it anywhere on your site. Help your happy users be your walking advertisements and make it more visible. - Louis Gray via Bookmarklet
I am sure if I walked in wearing one of these my partner would assault me. She hates my obsession with the site and doesn't understand why I frequent it so regularly! - Joe Dawson
Anybody like to send some free schwag halfway 'round the world? (I can't buy from cafepress 'coz the shipping costs are usually greater than the item costs. sigh) - Yuvi
i need one in black perhaps with a heavy metal devil's horn thrown in - Cee Bee
heck, allow users to design their own. - Kyle Lacy
Ok, I need to buy a FF shirt el pronto! - Susan Beebe
Anyone can create a CafePress store with anyone's logo, and it's hard to tell who's reaping the profits. So I wouldn't use this as a way to "give back" to the service. - Paul Whitaker
Paul, this is the official store, not a fan site. - Louis Gray
Thanks for sharing Louis - now my baby can be a true Swag magnet ;) - Jesse Stay
I'd want to break it down further. For example, in my main feed, I may hide certain services. But in a sub-feed, I'd want those to show up. In other words, I want to prioritize services and not have them show up in one single feed. - Tamar Weinberg
I thought this was going to be a crap article about stuff we already know. I'm glad I actually clicked on it...and read it :) - Rahsheen Porter
I follow all 10. Got any other suggestions? - Robert Scoble
Why isn't Scoble on the list? Or did I miss it? - Kyle Lacy
Kyle, it's based on Mike's top 10 most interesting subscriptions as defined by Friendfeed. If you go to Friend Settings in the top right, then click on Stats, you can see your top 10. Scoble just doesn't happen to be in Mike's top 10. - Mark Trapp
Would have probably helped if I actually read the entire post. I went straight to the image. - Kyle Lacy
Nice nice. But this just motivates me to use FF more for so many other reasons! - Tamar Weinberg
+1 for Franklin Pettit, he's very active here and tries a ton of alphas/betas. Not to mention he had twins a good 2 years before louis gray... he's quite the trend setter :-p - David Knight
Did he say skilled? :) As my inbox fills overnight ... appreciate the mention Mark. Of the people commenting (that I know) above, add Tamar if you're interesting in the Social Marketing or SEO space. - Charlie Anzman
Well done, pleasantly surprised. :) - sergiooooooo
Thanks Mike I am glad to be one of your favorites. You are one of my favorites as well. - Franklin Pettit
I love Franklin's bio -- "His blog was recently “Louis Grayed.” " - Shey
Cool list... those folks are definitely "keepers"... fun to follow and interact with, including you too Mark!! :o) - Susan Beebe
A great post on Friendfeeds FOAF feature :) - Oliver Ding
Neat article lots of common interests there! - Geoff Schultz
The FF stats are a great mini snapshot of 10 people we find the most interesting. We all can agree on one thing, the stats are lacking
and could use a significant overhaul. - Mike Fruchter
Wow, thanks for the link love....thaaaaaat explains all the new followers. I was wondering what the heck happened today! - Sarah Perez
Now absolutely confirmed. I've been Mike Fruchter'd (with all due respect to 'the fearless leader' of course). - Charlie Anzman
One woman out of ten people? Shameful. Women are at least half the population on this planet. Your prejudices are showing. - Out Wrong
I think it's incremental. The more follows a person has determines the noisiness. For high followers the noise on Twitter is incrementally worse than 4 FF. - Andrew Dobrow
Robert, there I will disagree with u.Noise generation has more opurtunity here, since 1.) U have no 140 char restriction, 2.) U can comment like mad. Though the second is a good feature to have in social app. But it also opens the avenue for major abuse - Arjun
It's not incremental. There are FAR more noisy posts on Twitter than on FriendFeed. You need to watch behavior over a lot wider range of people. Twitter noise, however, goes away within seconds and does not pop back up. - Robert Scoble
agree with you Andrew. Ultimately FF is better at managing the noise - Duncan Riley
Arjun, the huge noise reduction in FF comes down to two things. The hide feature, and most importantly, threaded conversation. Twitter is a purely linear system. Everything is thrown at you with no real sense of filtering. I'm much more likely to comment on a 2 days old FF post, rather than reply to a 2 day old Tweet. The lifespan of a Tweet is just so short. - Andrew Dobrow
Arjun: you haven't found the Hide feature yet. Also, you haven't studied the problem. Go and look at 1,000 Tweets over here. http://friendfeed.com/public?s... -- see, over here we can look at everything both with Tweets and without. Also, because you can hide things the noise goes away. You need to learn how to use Hide, that's a major way to get rid of noise. - Robert Scoble
Andrew: right, but lots of people are used to the "river" style of knowing that new things are at top and old things are at bottom. FriendFeed screws with that system, by bringing old things back up. FF really works when you look at it every few minutes. - Robert Scoble
Twitter is noisier than FriendFeed but Twitter is easier to manage. - Rom Feria
Robert, I think it's incremental in the fact that the more follows you lend out includes a higher likely hood of following a noisy user, as well as building up the timeline. As the number gains, so does the noise. But the ratio which proves the noise difference between FF and Twitter becomes so much more apparent after you reach a certain follow threshhold. That's what I meant by incremental. - Andrew Dobrow
Andrew: I think most people don't even know what noise is. Over on Twitter the messages go away so quickly that no one can really get too bad by a lame Tweet. While here the noise lingers. Look at all the "FriendFeed" talk over here. To me that's starting to be major noise, but to someone else, that's probably a fun conversation. Which is why I start using "Hide." - Robert Scoble
wow, interesting discussion. twitter is WAY more noisy. FF is a conversation and the content is more compelling making the noise less likely -
