The August numbers are in. For the past 3 months I've been tracking compete.com's traffic report for FriendFeed vs Twitter. For the previous 2 months FF has had a faster growth rate than Twitter according to compete. This month though paints a much less optimistic picture for FF with FF actually going negative (barely) in unique visitor growth while Twitter turns in a healthy 17.7% growth rate. Take it with a grain of salt of course, compete is flawed, inaccurate, etc. etc. blah blah blah.
- Thomas Hawk
from Bookmarklet
Friendfeed seems to have a fairly international user base, so hard to know whether that paints an accurate picture in terms of overall growth. Interesting that their growth in the US is slowing though.
- grag
it felt slower to me for most of August, but felt like it was picking up again after the launch of the beta. It will be interesting to see what the Sept. numbers look like.
- Thomas Hawk
Twitter had the BIG jump right about the time of last year's sxsw, FF is just getting started and the convo is a BIG + here.
- Dave Martin
Dave, I agree that FF is just getting started. I'm just curious as to why their growth stalled last month. It felt slower to me last month than in previous months. Hopefully the launch of the beta rejuvenates things. I think one thing to consider is that the pace of new development slowed in August. Maybe it's better to release little features weekly than a big beta every six weeks. Who knows. I used to think that FF would surpass Twitter in 6mo, in one year, the momentum felt that strong in the past.
- Thomas Hawk
I still don't get this comparison/competition thing between friendfeed and twitter. They are completely different kinds of services. The key to friendfeed is the aggregation. The point of twitter is status/micro-blogging. The only similarity is that friendfeed can be used for micro-blogging but nowhere nearly as simply as twitter.
- ·[▪_▪]·
http://www.quantcast.com/twitter... Twitter.com is a top 1,000 site that reaches over 1.5 million U.S. monthly people. The site caters to a more educated audience.The typical visitor reads Daily Kos and subscribes to Vanity Fair.
- A.T.
http://www.quantcast.com/friendf... This site reaches approximately 67,512 U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a 35-49, slightly more male than female crowd.The typical visitor reads prisonplanet.com and attends the University of Virginia.
- A.T.
i.e. I always thought that all these quantitative research tools shall be taken with grain of salt
- A.T.
Hopefully I'm wrong and this graph is misleading. But it feels like it's slowed to me. Where are all the greasemonkey scripts for instance? It doesn't seem like anyone's developed any for the new beta. I think we need profiles and lots of other things. I also think the UI still needs to have a dumbed down version for mainstream users. Not sure what the right answers are though.
- Thomas Hawk
i m not surprised, friendfeed makes too much noise
- tintin
from twhirl
I definitely don't want friendfeed profiles. I already provide service links to plenty of sites that store my profile.
- ·[▪_▪]·
actually what I do want from Friendfeed is technically not _that_ difficult, only I have no single big chunk time in next few weeks to start it as my project... barely,it is all about creating own mirror of what I consider as valuable from Friendfeed; and some sort of "Friendfeed on Gears" i.e. semioffline sync-ability using http://gears.google.com/
- A.T.
Myspace and FaceBook integration, and congruency between browsers. Personally I'm a fan of the black UI on Safari vs the white interface on FF
- Mona Nomura
Definitely audio/video recognition so people/object can be computationally tagged. Video is becoming like pictures.. and keeping track of videos is going to get more and more difficult. Seesmic is cool but I think it can really stand out if it takes the video technology to the next level. you should also enable audio conversations/replies. Some people want to reply or take part using just speech. ALso i think mobile integration is important, being able to participate and listen/watch through your phone.
- Akshay Dodeja
love the idea of speech recognition
- ledretch
from twhirl
selling the company to xxxx, take the money and run on an island, like the ex "la fraise" CEO did :) (friend of your isn't it?)
- aruban
from twhirl
A talent contest like Pop Idol(Web Idol) having a great geek jury ; ) Choose the 4?
- Erhan Erdogan
without a doubt, speech to text...get it all indexed.
- Zee.
Make it work in Firefox. Vids don't play about 60% of the time when clicked from external link (non Seesmic)
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
I'd hire an interesting VIP and provide people the opportunity talking to someone they would mostly never have the chance to meet and talk with in real world
- Margit Hinke
hmmm ideas: 1. I would make a bookmarklet that would allow me to share a link with my video comments. 2. I would get seesmic running in twhirl asap 3. Figure out how to get mobile video working in America (iphone or through a custom email for all the other phones with video capability). 4. I would license Summize.com type search for seesmic so that videos and conversations could be tracked, replied and engaged with greater ease. 5. Wordpress and Typepad plugin development, become the vlog tool of choice
- Tony
text to speech, so I can write/SMS/twitter a comment and have my avatar lipsync it as a CGI-generated seesmic for when I don't have a camera.
- Bill Thompson
from twhirl
thank you all, I will sum up all of your suggestions (and the ones I got on other social software) in one post, keep them going
- Loic Le Meur
Convince eBay to integrate Seesmic for feedback, contact on sellers/buyers
- Daniel De Luca
from twhirl
Robert (Scoble!) iphone would not get you use Seesmic. I am interested in what would make YOU use Seesmic. thanks for your help!
- Loic Le Meur
I agree with a bunch of other people an iPhone app but I also think having a version that isn't so reliant on flash would be nice so that some of those things like the OLPC and stuff would be able to support it out of the box (since you are going to start with taht educational version I think I read about)
- Andrew Fielding
Loic - if you could give Scoble Qik capability via Seemic except better quality, I bet he'd bite (:
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
The possibility to add special effects on the videos, based on face detection (ie: use another background, put a hat/sunglasses/moustache on the face...)
- Kurai (ff)
from twhirl
So I am going to take a different approach. As a CEO with $10M in VC cash number one priority would be to grow seesmic. Increase the stockholder value. I think technologically speech recognition would be great but its not going to immediately grow(users/PViews). I think partnerships and bring VIPs as someone mentioned would be a good start. Video conversations is interesting but for people to come to the site and really use a service like this you need interesting content as a topic of discussion....
- Akshay Dodeja
I liked a lot Tony's ideas. If the posibility of croping video/photo partsfrom original video stream were possible, then a stumbleupon feature (specifying video/photo interest and navigating through them) and del.icio.us like feature of bookmarking certain video/photo parts of a video stream or the entirely would be cool. Also a possibility of somehow putting together bunch of photos into a Seesmic video woldnt be bad, via iPhone or on web.
- Hayk H.
... like youtube the responses works really well when there is a good content. I think if you are able to bring video content to seesmic, user generated or partnerships and have people discuss those. That can create major buzz. Seesmic does conversations really, but honestly I don't want to take my conversation over there. I want to respond to popular content/ideas.
- Akshay Dodeja
download my video's - so I can share them also via other sites
- Erno Hannink
Another idea 6. is to have a "room" sort of functionality cooked in that could be private, similar to Friendfeeds model. Except it could be used like 37 Signals "Journal" feature for teams, groups or any other types of social or affinity circles of people. I think a barrier for a lot of people with seesmic could be that everyone sees you, instead of just the people you already know or want to connect with - (ie everyday usage).
- Tony
Oh yes, MP4 links so when I embed videos in to my blog they get picked up and sent as podcast via Feedburner
- Douglas E. Welch
from twhirl
I'd let someone special do her/his VERY PRIVATE seesmic DIARY for a while... for example the wife who gave a special Bday present to her husband:1 year - 365 days sex every day - probably u heard about this story since the couple wrote a book about this special time.... every day 60 seconds talk about ... and Im absolutly sure people will love it.
- Margit Hinke
Another idea, if i may add, could be perhaps to organize live chat/conversations/interviews with Seesmic members/invited guests on streets/restaurants etc. Members voting for topic(s) and then once-per-month (periodical) live chat/conversation on that topic(s).
- Hayk H.
Maybe have a hotkey that will do a picture-in-picture from an image on your computer. For example, if you're telling a story about your vacation, while you're talking you can hit the ctrl-1 key to show a pre-defined slide as an overlaid PIP. With another key you can make it toggle full-screen. This way you can do lectures with visual aids. Online video presentations and education FTW.
- sergiooo
Also, while you're recording a video it would be great to type out a web link or just some text and have it appear on the screen as a title, maybe even clickable from an attached window thing. Online educators would love this, and it would help with special needs students. (can you tell I taught for a while? hehe)
- sergiooo
saw that yesterday , glad she is fine I'm a fireman in Canada , many years ago I was at a school where a man took cover under a large tree during a lightning storm and this man wasn't so fortunate. This lady is very lucky.
- johnpiercy
Isn't that (for the most part) the point of FF?
- Justin Korn
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 Singh
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
from 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
from 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
from twhirl
Couldn't agree more. I just added a bunch of gluten free people cause I have celiacs and then the usual band of geeks.
- Ryan Cates
I'm just going to subscribe to Michael so I won't have to work so hard to track those people down.
- Todd McKinney
and would even be more interesting if FF helped me discover more folks who werent like m, but were still interesting.
- dave mcclure
But I'm filtering out the social news stuff, for the most part.
- Tamar Weinberg
+1 Dave McClure... we need categories of interests badly! so we can filter content and subscribe accordingly; plus rooms would also be associated with said categories... (I already submitted a feature request for this)
- Susan Beebe
the funny thing is that FriendFeed wouldn't work for me if it was my actual circle of friends. they like stuff that I have no interest in.
- Jamie
Jamie: Funny but true for me too. I really like Susan's suggestion for finding cool new things and interesting people via categories. That would open the door for a StumbleUpon-like function for FF.
- David Muir
I agree. And thats a good thing..right? Every day when I come to FF it works like "Google News" for me :)
- Saad Kamal
It's exactly what u said . ... The more popular ur friends are , The more famous u are
- saee:Dsharif
Obviously the content I choose to see - I am interested in. However and this is not just semantics what I am "interested in" at a particular moment and my more permanent "interests" are NOT necessarily the same things. And for me a core benefit of social networks is discovery. For that reason I would say, no, the people I follow do not tend to reflect my interests all the time.
- John Samuelson
I think that would be the main reason why you would add people on FriendFeed although it is not the only reason. You could add friends (who are not on FF) by making them "imaginary friends" just so that you could keep tabs on them.
- Hubert Lotilla
@Hubert turns out whoisi.com approximates the imaginary friend feature rather well...
- Chris Messina
Have fun at the summit, keep us updated!
- Aaron Myers
Looking forward to hearing what MS is up to in photography.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Great you made the flight , see you @ the party this evening.xoxo
- Mrsth
that sounds really fun, Thomas. I know you'll get some great pics and hope you have a good time.
- matt hollingsworth
Best way to beat the Bay Area heat wave I've heard. Wish I were going & I'm not a pro photog.
- shelisrael1
You must make it to Gas Works Park, I could see you spending a couple hours there without moving more then 20 feet in any direction. So much macro.....
- Squid
definitely planning on shooting gasworks.
- Thomas Hawk
Barack Obama on FriendFeed? Don't believe it. I met the guy who set up the account and it actually is done by a Republican lobbiest. He said he set it up to keep track of Obama and also to keep Obama's staff from using the account. I wish there were a way to authenticate that people are who they see
just like the folks who grabbed "robertscoble" on plurk. That seems like identity theft to me, it's one thing to have the same name but it's another to imply you are a another person.
- Doug Brooks
Yet another proof of the classic comic: "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog."
- Craig Eddy
Louis knows everyone. Yeah, it is Patrick.
- Robert Scoble
Heh, you can tell he's committed to integrity, too: "McCain Nearly Outraises Obama in May" So you mean, he didn't. Friendfeed gave back the Engadget account to Ryan Block when he requested it: who do you have to talk to at the Obama campaign for them to make the same request?
- Mark Trapp
brand squatting is a rampant problem. who should get to create the salesforce.com account on any service? i think this needs to be tied to domain ownership, possibly via OpenID
- Kingsley Joseph
from twhirl
classic. let's see how many comment this gets :)
- Tim Hoeck
So is this like *real* politics where there's a real dude and a fake dude all with the same name?
- Susan Beebe
I thought I read somewhere that Ruffini had the McCain FriendFeed account. Why haven't Obama's people complained? Are they gunshy after the MySpace account incident? Or is it unimportant? Same question to McCain, if Ruffini controls that too.
- Ontario Emperor
from fftogo
unless they use OfficialBarackObama. but i figure knowing this info couldn't they sue?
-
Pretty simple solution. Obama campaign creates a FFtogo account. Posts it on their site. The unofficial one gets ignored or blocked.
- Bill Bittner
from fftogo
This name squatting across socnets is silly. Fork over your DNA @scobleizer and only then shall you get that coveted @scobelizer moniker across socnets. Bow down to thy namesquatters.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
I believe it. Their Internet strategy was beyond awesome.
- Charlie Anzman
Louis, what you don't know is that Patrick is merely a vessel in which McCain will enter when his body gives out. Sort of like Being John Malkovich, except Patrick is more interesting.
- Andrew Feinberg
This is hilarious. But on looking at the stuff in the channel it is clear that he is promoting Obama. Why is he doing that.... baiting the folks to believe that this is the real official channel?
- Vic Podcaster
Ruffini is a Republican, but he's very interested in the process, campaiging itself as well as social media. Not everyone is a Republican is evil, surprise surprise.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Lay off Patrick. He's a smart guy who happens to be on one side of the line. Every time I read his stuff or talk to him I learn something new. I can't say that for a great many Dems, sadly.
- Andrew Feinberg
Dirty tricks in politics. I think Jefferson made them up.
- Francine Hardaway
He is not a lobbyist he is an ecampaign strategist and blogger - identifying ourselves as Republicans (or worse Republican campaign operatives) on FriendFeed and Twitter is bad enough we don't need to be labeled as lobbyists as well. Next thing you know we are going to be "Republican lobbyist lawyers who own used car lots"
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Marco you forgot the words 'extreme' and 'fundamentalist' :)
- Erin @queenofspain
You guys don't see any problem with him purporting to be someone he's not?
- Mark Trapp
@erin get back in your fort! I was pretty certain combining "Republican" "Extreme" and "Fundamentalist" would have been seen as unnecessarily repetitive in FriendFeed ; )
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Wow, everyone is ready to rip this guy even though he hasn't done anything malicious with the accounts. Has the Obama or McCain camps even asked him to give up the accounts?
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
By signing up an account name that is so clearly intended to be someone else, and not disclosing that is really playing on people's trust. If it was used to seed malicious information, surely thats libelous.
- Dom Barnes
i'm sure if the obama campaign approached friendfeed, they could get conrtol of the account. this is a non-issue
- @baratunde
I Actaully befriend da obama handle , thinking it was a campaign person from Obama's camp...after all their Twitter handle seemed genuine and worked well. So what is FF's policy for such malicious users ?? Are they going to block account and freeze it or what ? and this is not just about having a prez handle and workin it. rather a community /social question.. we all know the rift on the Loren/Shel issue, but how do we & FF Mod's negate such trolls in this space ?
- Peter Dawson
As long as there is no (realistic, scalable) way to check people's identities that works for everybody (so no credit card) and is free (or companies won't implement it), all this talk is useless.
- sebmos
@Peter Dawson - Beside being an account that wasn't created by Obama's campaign, this account didn't do anything wrong. It's definitely not a "troll", as it didn't comment useless stuff, etc. I'm having a difficult time seeing the problem with THIS account.
- sebmos
The account does not claim to be Obama, and clearly is not slandering Obama. Further, even if it WAS on Obama's behalf it wouldn't "be" him anyway. As for the whole squatting hew and cry, think of the nightmare. How popular would someone have to be before they could demand the special status of "he who gets to use one name everywhere"? Does Scoble get special treatment but a smaller person is just screwed? First come, first served is fine. In cases of slander or fraud there are already laws.
- Soulhuntre
"He said he set it up to keep track of Obama and also to keep Obama's staff from using the account" - and you replied.....
- Rashunda Tramble
Je rejoins ton analyse. Le blog restant en mon sens le seul espace où une personne peut créer et relayer un contenu riche, qu'il soit texte, photo ou vidéo. les outils de lifestream ne restent que des outils de diffusion qui permettent pour les personnes les plus influentes de se promouvoir après de leur communauté.
- Cédric DENIAUD
OK... mais alors pourquoi utiliser un Lifestream ? Je pense que la clé réside dans les lifestream intégrés aux blogs (il existe un plug-in pour WordPress qui fait ça très bien et que je vais intégrer à la nouvelle version de mon blog).
- Fred CAVAZZA
J'pense que Robert voulait plutôt parler de la fin de la domination des blogs en tant que élément principal de visibilité de notre identité... Il va de soi que les lifestream ont besoins d'etre alimentées par des blogs et services de partage de contenu. Et que les services de lifestreaming devraient effectivement ne pas s'accaparer l'audience des (contenus) originaux et au contraire les promouvoir en indiquant leurs permaliens... Notamment pour y faire un commentaire ;o) .oO(quoique)
- Olivier ze kat
How to post to delicious, Pownce, Twitter, Tumblr, MySpace, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Faves, Google Bookmarks, and Mahalo at the same time - http://www.calacanis.com/2008...