of course I appreciate I'm unlikely to get those answers here... :P - Zee. from iPhone

yep - Josh Haley

Twitter is much easier than friendfeed to use from mobile phone. Also, it has a high level of chatter right now, which seems to be drawing people in, even ff users. Of course, not likely to get response from someone who has actually reverted to Twitter . . . - Chris Rogers from BuddyFeed

Lack of a FF program for the G1 keeps me on twitter, but I have it linked to FF and vice versa. When in front of a PC I use FF exclusively, when with only my cellphone available I'll use Twitter exclusively. I do not, however, do much communication with others on either service. - Tsali, The Native of FF

Actually got FF and twitter going n just about quit ecadamy n a few others a big mistake, so try to do them once a day at least, had 6 r 7 accounts now down to 3 r 4 do not seem to need more, When Work starts will probably fix it in 3 main and 1 minor or even less. "Times they are a changing" - ThatDBD

Who? - Rochelle

Zee - yep, I have seen that too. They let their twitter feed continue to populate FF, but they no longer contribute to the conversation here in FF.... sad - Susan Beebe

Social networks are like the tide they ebb and flow. Sounds like a good excuse to make friends with newcomers. - Davis Freeberg

i'd like a friendfeed client outside of a browser that doesnt use AIR. and more people I know IRL using it as well, or it just doesn't feel like much fun. I'll prolly dork with it a little bit more now that there are themes. - rob friedman

I second Rochelle's "Who?" - RAPatton from iPod

I haven't seen Patricia Hanrahan in months and her account is gone. :( - Josh Haley

The guy who got me into FF is now mostly on Twitter - Steve Isaacs. At least he still imports into FF. - Josh Haley

Patricia made her Twitter private and deleted her FF due to a work issue. - RAPatton from iPod

There may be one other reason -not always pleasant to think about - but some circles of friends on FF appear to be closed. They aren't closed but I've seen entries suggesting this perspective. It's tricky because I've seen people postings that they were unsubscribing to other people, etc. - LPH™ and his dog P™ from BuddyFeed

I second on LLL and LPH's sentiments. I feel the same and have been participating less & less on my social networking accounts. - imabonehead

I don't remember whether I used FF or Twitter 1st, but I know I went from Twitter -> FriendFeed & then back to Twitter for short status updates. I'm mostly on Friendfeed now - LANjackal

more conversation, though even with threaded conversations, it's still harder to follow - wish it were going on here, but it isn't (at least not in psych and Buddhism) - William Harryman

On the plus side, we can at least still see some of them if they left their FF accounts open and, if need be, contact them via Twitter. That's one of the beautiful things about this service. You can virtually abandon FF if you choose and still be found through it. - Kamilah Gill

I haven't abandoned Twitter, but it's the other way around for me. There's more engagement here and I prefer that. - Tamar Weinberg

I'm new to Friendfeed and wish I could get more people to come here as I like the conversations....but I cannot seem to get them to. - Hummie

@Hummie: I guess FF's one of those services whose value/utility only becomes truly apparent when you get deeply involved in it - LANjackal

Friendfeed can be kind of hard to break into. Seriously. Some people fart and get 50 responses, while some post decent stuff and get nothing. - Suburban Oblivion

Friendfeed can be hard to follow if you don't "get" it, also, of those following a whole load of people the speed of the screen auto update can be daunting. I think also it's hard to pick up subscribers here, folks aren't as likely to follow you back here when you follow then, which for people who get an ego boost from their numbers is quite discouraging. - Paul OFlaherty

@Suburban: As with all communities, you have to invest time and effort to get recognition. It also takes practice in knowing how to post stuff in a manner that grabs attention (pics & comments). I also have a lil theory that regardless of popularity, the average percentage of your friends who actively follow you remains about the same. People who get 30 likes just for sneezing usually have hundreds or thousands of subscribers - LANjackal

I just looked at my feed, and realized most of my front page stuff is twitter. I took off my twitter feed since I am so active there, and am going to focus on just sharing content here, see if that helps. More content, less noise. - Suburban Oblivion

The main reason I am spending more time on Twitter and less time on Friendfeed: Twitter permits me to scan much more news more quickly and efficiently than Friendfeed. Friendfeed could address this problem by offering the option to hide all comments and by providing options for more compact displays of posts. - Sean McBride

Also: something is off about the social dynamics of Friendfeed: it's too cozy, too ingrown, too much like a BBS mainboard with a single community dominating the space. Twitter is much more diverse and much less unipolar. Friendfeed needs a much a broader user base. But Friendfeed is still a valuable and innovative piece of software, no matter how you cut it. - Sean McBride

Twitter: Diverse but noisy; the chattering, unwashed masses. FriendFeed: Better S/N: less trendy == fewer idiots? Still using both. FriendFeed does need more diversity but otherwise is more useful. (Agreeing with Sean) Twitter is simple enough for an idiot to use, which leads to the inevitable result. - Andy Dustman

Andy wrote: "Twitter: Diverse but noisy; the chattering, unwashed masses." Nothing could be further from the truth. There are many more high-quality feeds on Twitter than on Friendfeed. That is one of the key reasons I am spending much more time on Twitter these days. You need to explore Twitter feedspace more carefully. Begin by checking out which Twitter feeds the smartest Twitter users are following. - Sean McBride

I'm much more likely to find someone I'm looking for on twitter than on FF, that's for sure. Case in point, yesterday I was looking for author Robin S Sharma: twitter yes, FF no. Shame really.. - Adrian Scicluna

Sean: Not saying there are no high-quality feeds, but rather that there are a lot of low-quality ones. The total volume of all traffic is much greater than FF from what I can tell. There are gems but there's a mountain of trash too. 95% of the people who try to follow me lately are bots or spammers, another example of Sturgeon's Law in action. - Andy Dustman

The change to realtime is buzzkilling FFeed for me, personally. I know I could Scobleize my approach to using it, but the system damn well worked damn well before. I can't stand that I'm reading something--doesn't matter how long or short, and it disappears right before my eyes. And once it's gone, it's effectively GONE.I know there's the Giant Pause Button, but really, if I'm gonna have to click it all the time to actually read content here, how's that any different than the old way? I'd not mind a way to pin/pause/set-realtime individual posts/threads. Of course, I've not been on twitter much lately either, so there's that, too. (made a couple edits) - abacab

It's the exact opposite for me. The fact that FriendFeed updates in real-time (no page refreshing, thank God) AND my Home Feed is extremely customizable (i.e. I can be very selective in what appears there) means that I see all of what I care about and very little of what I don't. Also, you *can* link to an individual post (the post time is hyperlinked) - LANjackal from IM

LANjackal -- have you tried using the latest version of Peoplebrowsr? Much zippier than Friendfeed. - Sean McBride

for me, it was mostly the revamp of the UI...at simple as that sounds. I also started using tweetdeck. i still think FF has A LOT of great features (better even than twitter) for conversation - stanleyyork

Andy -- it's easy on Twitter to follow only the high-quality feeds. 99.9% of Twitter traffic is invisible to me. - Sean McBride

@Sean: Ummm who said i was complaining about FF's speed? It's eyeblink-fast as is. PeopleBrowsr is a cumbersome nightmare IMO (I don't like heavy webapps). FF + Digsby works perfectly for me as is @stanleyyork: Twitter doesn't even do chronological threading, it's a nightmare from a conversation standpoint - LANjackal from IM

I've almost done the opposite. I'm not at Twitter that much anymore. FriendFeed takes almost all of my online time :) - Patrik Johansson

LANjackal -- by "zippier" I meant that one can navigate more material more efficiently in Twitter via Peoplebrowsr than in Friendfeed. Each right cursor press displays four new Twitter stacks (often, for me, search stacks) with five items visible in each stack -- 20 items per screen. That's damned zippy. And these are all high-quality stacks -- very little noise. - Sean McBride

Sean: I don't have trouble finding good Twitter feeds. It's harder now that you don't see replies to people not on your follow list, though, and I've been following a lot fewer people since they did that, now that I think of it. I'm only saying there is proportionately more crap there, and more crap-generators trying to get you to follow them. - Andy Dustman

@Sean: Don't like Twitter to begin with because of its lack of native features and char limitations, so I stay away from it. And PeopleBrowsr's UI is just ... eww. The 2nd point is subjective, I know - LANjackal from IM

I should add that the only reason I use Twitter is because it's the market leader in what it does. Period. I don't actually like the service. - LANjackal from IM

LANjackal -- I just visited my Peoplebrowsr page, and discovered 15 high-value clickable Twitter links on a *single* screen. Damned slick, in my opinion. Admittedly, it took some tinkering to fine-tune this setup. - Sean McBride

@Sean: You're missing my point. I. DON'T. LIKE. TWITTER. Period. Its native limitations are just too annoying. I use it only because so many other people do. If everyone I wanted to follow on Twitter used FriendFeed, I'd drop Twitter instantly - LANjackal from IM

I mainly use Twitter due to a number of folks I need to follow for news - but I prefer FF if I am in front of the comp. If a good Pre app came out I'd use it all of the time. - Nation Hahn

LANjackal -- and I am explaining (in response to the question at the head of this thread) why one heavy user of Friendfeed (I've posted nearly 15,000 comments here) is using Twitter more these days and Friendfeed less. I've also offered suggestions on how Friendfeed could trump Twitter in providing the features which are responsible for this trend. - Sean McBride

+1 mobile phone (NOT iPhone) - Thierry R. Andriamirado

I would be able to manage FF a lot better if I could have a dashboard view. I'm a piles person, not a drawers person. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. Being able to pin topics or people and toggle realtime on those, and keep most of it in view in some fashion, would bring me full-tilt back into FF. - abacab

Piles vs. drawers = interesting distinction. I'm definitely a drawers person when it comes to my computing, but a piles person IRL - LANjackal from IM

One of my issues is that everyone I talk to is on Twitter and the only thing on FF are their tweets! I think it's also difficult for people to follow the feed without a good application like Tweetdeck for Twitter or notification system. - Karen Swim

Karen, You can use lists and saved searches: much more powerful than TweetDeck ;) + the rather flexable email notifications - Thierry R. Andriamirado from email

seriously Zee and I hope I don't appear stupid, I find Friendfeed hard to use - Patphelan

I'm guessing FF lacks the dead simplicity of Twitter ... question: how do you find Facebook? - LANjackal from IM