I suspect that a lot of the continuing media coverage of Twitter probably accounts for it's continued rise. I'm not sure why FF seems to remain flat though. - Thomas Hawk

Maybe for a migration of early users from facebook to twitter, while the number of active users on FF isn't increased much. I mean that the usage of twitter isn't regular but it have a peek when important events happens (e.g. Iran elections or MJ death) - Roberto from fftogo

I remember seeing a graph like that about the time Pownce shut down..or similar. - Mike Lewis

Plus I'm sick of hearing twitter every time I turn on the TV. Wish Rick Sanchez and Don Lemon could see me shaking my fists at them :) - Shivanand Velmurugan

Because FriendFeed continues to be perceived as too hard to use, too much information, too difficult to make it display what you want it to display, too desktop centric, et al. And they are right. - Robert Scoble

I think FF might be a complex enough web service that it needs to step forward and make its own desktop and mobile clients, in its own vision. Quality clients straight from the horse's mouth would bring the experience out of the browser the way it's meant to be. - David Chartier from iPhone

I disagree. Their mobile site is top notch, and as for desktop app, just use a chrome instance on windows or a fluid.app on mac, works beautifully, shortcuts and all. - Evan Travers from Android

Scoble: I think Twitter makes it much more difficult to make it display what you want it to display. Without some type of Folder structure, Twitter falls apart keeping order once you follow a certain number of people. FF brings order to the madness. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

TWITTER TRACKER TWITTER TRACKER - Rochelle

1UP Rochelle - Akiva

ff needs to read my post about how they will make money - that chart would change if they would listen :) - Allen Stern

thanks for keeping score - chaz2b

Robert if people can figure out how to navigate the iTunes store or buy something on amazon, then they shouldn't have any trouble figuring out Friendfeed. It's not that complex. - Jeff P. Henderson from iPhone

Who is searching for "hip hop distribution" so much and what does that even refer to??? - Mitch

interesting point Robert. I wonder how they could improve it. I know that one thing that I would like would to be able to import all of my Flickr contacts into FF. I think there are a huge number of potential Flickr users who would use FriendFeed if it had that capability. Not sure why they don't implement that. It would be very cool to match up my Flickr contacts with their FF accounts and auto set up imaginary friends for contacts not on FF yet. - Thomas Hawk

FriendFeed still needs SMS - for instance, in South Dakota I couldn't access or post to FriendFeed, but I could Twitter because I still had SMS. Twitter is simply open to many, many more audiences because of that. - Jesse Stay

I believe that mostly only after Twitter users have sufficiently "banged their heads against" its unwieldiness with larger "following" counts (and no, Tweetdeck isn't a sufficient solution), do they wake up to the idea that a service like FriendFeed is even necessary (someone that doesn't think Web2.0 info filtering as a huge issue simply doesn't need FF). As such, FF is likely always going to stay a bit of a "power user" niche, which is fine, as long as they recognize that and act accordingly. Give us (your best customers) continuously more power user features (like click stats, etc.), and simply start charging for these advanced services. I know I would be glad to pay $100/year, maybe even more, if it were to guarantee FF's continuous existence and improvement. - Alex Schleber

Jesse - Use an SMS to Email client, FFS. - Mitch

i'm with alex on the paid features, but not $100/year. maybe $50 or $5/month. and totally agree that FF will remain a great tool for power users as long as it stays in its current form. - Scott Magdalein

A quick look at Quantcast (the far better measurement tool BTW) and you'll see that Twitter's success is tied to a band of addicts and regulars. 1% of the people make up 35% of the visits. FF hasn't obtained this type of hard core following yet. But Twitter is not converting new people as fast as they were - more than 50% of users have never sent a Tweet. How much is now automated Tweet activity? And when does that automation push people off of Twitter to other networks. Growth for the sake of growth does nothing. FF may not get that type of Webvan type growth (yeah, I dropped it) but they have a better trajectory because the platform has far more utility than Twitter from the get go. - AJ Kohn

Scoble has provided the best analysis of why Twitter is taking off and Friendfeed is stalled: noise. It's as simple as that. The FF interface is much too cluttered. Try offering the option to hide all comments and large images by default, and see what happens. Multi-column list view. More powerful automated personal prioritization of news. Radically reduce the noise and clutter, while still providing the tools to conduct lengthy conversations. (Typically one can see only 2 news stories on a Friendfeed screen vs. 20 to 30 on some other services.) - Sean McBride

one million unique visitor isnt all that much - Iphigenie

Sean: My argument to this is that FF signal/noise ratio is much better to control in FF over Twitter. First, the engaging posts (like this one) float to the Top. But secondly, I can move people that create more noise than signal to a High Volume Folder. This gets rid of a lot. On the screen real estate, I kind of agree but love being able write longer items (like this). Agree that Filter types needs improving. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Technical people, savvy people, early adopters - you know, cool people like us - know about FriendFeed, but if I talk to my family about the web then they'll have heard about Twitter and Facebook and MySpace but there's a complete blank look if I say the magic word FriendFeed. The failure is one of marketing and usefulness; there's nothing complicated or restrictive for mainstream users about using FriendFeed but what will my parents get out of it and how can it be promoted to them for example? - Mark H

Mark brings up a great point, it's the flock effect for most. They go where there friends are or where they think their audience is and that's mass marketed sites. I personally like Friendfeed this audience size (though I understand they would prefer to grow). - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

FF, a long way to go, but Twitter can't sustain this growth for long time - Michael_techie

Hello Thomas, Thanks for sharing, have you make any revenue through twitter? How you done this? - Rohit

Revenue through Twitter? not that I'm aware of Rohit. I've sold a lot of photos on the internet and get money from ads when people read my blog, but I wouldn't say I've made any direct revenue through twitter directly. - Thomas Hawk

manielse says: "Twitter falls apart keeping order once you follow a certain number of people. FF brings order to the madness." Absolutely not true until you go to the trouble of setting up lists, groups, and searches. All of which you can do on Twitter with clients like TweetDeck. Or, just do as I do: don't follow thousands of people. - Ian Betteridge

Ian, my point is that I don't need a 3rd party tool to do it in FF. Yes it's a little work but worth the effort IMO. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

friendfeed is too complicated for the average user, is a pain on mobile(reason I use it less than twitter), and doesn't have Ashton Kutcher or anyone comparable. It's a better product that will never really go "Mainstream Pop". - Cody Heitschmidt

Friendfeed is where all the really *smart" people are. Yes, I mean YOU. :-) - Karma Martell

I agree Karma! :) - Thomas Hawk

Ditto Karma and Thomas! And there's so much more here on FF. You can do so much more with creativity. - Myrna

My friends are joining Facebook. Twitter not so much (although corporations seem to be catching on). FriendFeed - nada. - Mitchell Tsai

What does FriendFeed need? IMO Paths, signposts, places-to-go. In my past life doing HCI (Human-computer interface), ~50% of people don't get "directory" structures much less anything so info-rich as FF. See my posts on Myers-Briggs, where most people here are a minority of the general public. People here can read 100+ blogs & new sources. Most people are overwhelmed. If you simplify the interface, you DON'T SEE MUCH. Most people need paths, destinations, places-to-go - not necessary top-X lists, but even in the FF community, lots of us use top-X lists to find people because rooms haven't been enough. Topical searches, FF destinations (pre-made searches or some type of pseudo-location for people's posts - e.g. science posts will clutter around a science area - with a 3-D/4-D visualization of conversations. Now, FF is for us information junkies. IMO. - Mitchell Tsai

and how many twitter accounts are actually in use, posting and interacting? there are a lot of dead twitter accounts. the main problem with friendfeed is it gives to much power to your friends to change the priority of your posts. there should be a linear mode - NoahDavidSimon

Chris's post brings an interesting piece to the "too complicated" debate: Facebook is actually more like Friendfeed than Twitter. Facebook is very complicated in many aspects yet it's mainstream. Point being, FF is not really too complicated, it's just not a household name (and I like it that way). - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

What would I like - "Find me 10 people talking about cancer related topics." "Give me 20 hot technology discussions." "What's happening with 3G networks and the future of WiFi?" "Whose birthdays have been happening?" "Waterfall pictures" "Swimming discussions" etc... - Mitchell Tsai

Manielse: Facebook is a great way to share pictures... FF is more text-based. - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell, you're just subscribed to the wrong people. - Myrna

Facebook is hardly just about Pictures (yet I admit done much much better than FF) and is very text based. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Manielse, ditto - Myrna

Pictures? I'm on fb and have 1000 friends or more, not as many as Sarah Palin. I love posting pics on FF, better than fb - Myrna

It's just that regular people like fb. My whole family is on fb and that's a lot of people. They wouldn't be interested in FF. - Myrna

Facebook also has critical mass. To make another comparison, Tribe.net offered a wonderful service (with some early investor money), but only achieved critical mass in the San Francisco Bay Area - mostly with the alternative "Burning Man" crowd. Tribe.net is kick-butt for SF events, but sucks in LA. MySpace started with the music scene, but managed to grow. Where will FriendFeed go? Can it move past techies, bloggers, and a few photographers? - Mitchell Tsai

Facebook has not reached critical mass with my college classmates (1982-1989, age 40-50). Only 3-8% are on Facebook, and I still haven't seen a mad rush (including my Tech CEO/CTO friends). Most are deathly afraid of the career consequences. Whereas, 30-40% (maybe more by now) are on LinkedIn. My dance communities (a few thousand people) made the cross-over to Facebook in the past year - perhaps 95% are on Facebook (compared to about 5-10% last year). - Mitchell Tsai

Honestly, most people come to Friendfeed and see constant discussions about Friendfeed. That's just what they see. It's A list narcissism on speed with a mob mentality. And don't take this up with me, look at the graph again. Take it up with the people that come here, see what they do and leave. Maybe it's good that it is that flat to the established community here, but I'm sure the founders cannot be pleased. - Mike Lewis

I always love the "Most are deathly afraid of the career consequences" quotes. It's so true that people are afraid of these tools. If you think about it HRs would love to see your FriendFeed, less work for them to find all of your online postings. I can understand the fear is being transparent and open but private people in my opinion raises more concerns...makes me question why they are so private? - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

manielse: Because one stupid picture can cost you your job as a high-school teacher. Traditional institutions are so conservative. Some high schools prohibit their teachers from using Facebook (for fear of lawsuits from parents), even though some college professors are now using Facebook in their classes. I have some high school principal friends, and the fear of lawsuits from students & parents is pretty crazy. One of my high school teachers lost his job (pre-Facebook) through a sexual harassment case from a student. Won the court case, but still lost his job. 40s and 50s people have seen more of their real-life friends lose jobs from politics/lawsuits/etc... than 20s and 30s. - Mitchell Tsai

Some interesting points raised here: http://ff.im/53C52 about FF's lack of growth. - Kol Tregaskes

Mitchell: I hear you. It's just so sad that these things (Lawsuits & fear of loosing job) happen though. Fear is such a powerful force. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

And I just shifted completely over to ff this week. - Rohit

like your post on how friendfeed could work better with flickr too - Kate

friendfeed is such an awesome blogging tool it would be a shame to ruin it with a community that I have no control over. I kind of feel the same way about Seesmic - NoahDavidSimon

http://trends.google.com/website... - Mitch