FriendFeed: Nothing Special with a Big Name Ancestor
02/17/2008, 6 months 3 weeks ago
FriendFeed seems to be the aggregator on everyone's Facebook profile these days. Made up entirely of ex-Googlers, it seems to have taken off, at least as my updates seem to keep telling me.
Linking up feeds from 28 supported services (including the usual StumbleUpons, Twitters, YouTubes, and Flickrs), FriendFeed allows you to keep up with what your contacts are doing in one centralized location, via either your FriendFeed page or the corresponding Facebook application.
If this is all sounding familiar, you are right; FriendFeed is similar to other aggregators like Spokeo and Dandelife. It lacks the spooky quality of Spokeo, but the ex-employer information on the team page would have been apparent merely from the UI design. FriendFeed has a bare-bones look-and-feel that makes you wonder if you aren't just looking at a glorified feed reader, devoid of any personality to make the app memorable. What works for search doesn't always work for users, especially if you want them to spend any time on the site.
As for the Facebook app side of FriendFeed, they obviously abandoned the less-is-more mentality behind the site design. Installing the Facebook app updates your profile (and sends a story) every time you interact with any of the services you have linked to your FriendFeed profile. In other words, if you tend to Tweet a lot, or bookmark a lot of sites, be prepared to have your profile (and many of your friends' updates) buried in your every action.
Between the too-sparse web interface and the overzealous Facebook updates, I found FriendFeed more hype than function, with a long way to go to lure me in.
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If you find the Facebook updates really are overzealous, you can change the application options in Facebook so that nothing gets posted to your News Feed or Mini Feed (depending on whether it’s your or your friends who are going crazy adding things that get posted to FriendFeed). The whole point of FriendFeed is to let your friends know what you’re doing, so I’m not sure why you’d want to do this though.
I guess because I have this silly idea that thinks that my feeds should only be shared with my friends who are interested in them, hence desiring a subscription model rather than a broadcast model.
If I find a link that I think is something I really want to share with everyone, I use the posted items feature on Facebook itself, which also allows an exchange of ideas via the comments.
But if my friends what to subscribe to me then FriendFeed is brilliant. If I decide to start a new blog or start using Twitter or another service, they’ll automatically see whatever I post or share. On the other hand, if they wanted to just subscribe to my blog, they can do that elsewhere (or setup an “Imaginary Friend” on FriendFeed if they want to subscribe to other people but keep everything in one place).
You could theoretically use FriendFeed as your central place for sharing links and then automatically import those items into Facebook using the “import feed” option for notes, since they also allow comments, without installing the FriendFeed application. And that would also mean that your non-Facebook loving friends would still be able to subscribe to your shared items if they wanted to (since Facebook doesn’t have a feed for notes or posted items).
Tony, then tell me what FriendFeed does that other aggregators aren’t already doing with a much nicer interface and other, less intrusive means of sharing. I didn’t say having an aggregator was a bad thing; in fact I use one regularly (Dandelife). I was saying that FriendFeed isn’t doing anything new or innovative, that the interface was so barebones as to look circa 1995, and that the Facebook app was annoying.
Using FriendFeed as an example; this is the main reason why I’m so hopeful about a true Semantic Web. Friend Feed just dumps at me, with no friendly way in place to sort through the information. The same is true of Spokeo. Take, for instance, the day that I switched over from del.icio.us to Ma.gnolia. Every single one of my bookmarks imported hit my feed in an aggregator. Every last one. Can you IMAGINE the mess of that hitting someone’s Facebook? Again using Dandelife as an example, I get a list via email at the end of the day broken down by person. I can quickly scan it to see what’s relevant, and if a mass changeover takes place like the one I described, it’s obvious, and I can skip right over it.
I’ve never used any of the other services you’re talking about, so I can’t comment on them. But I know that FriendFeed does exactly what I need it to do, so why would I need to go looking elsewhere? (Sure, FriendFeed could probably do with a search feature one day but I’ve not needed that yet — and I’m subscribed to 22 people.) I guess the Facebook application could cause problems for some people but it doesn’t cause any problem for me. And the interface is minimal but I personally prefer that. I guess I prefer to live in 1995 rather than 2015. Heh…
I’ve actually just had a look at Dandelife and was initially confused by words like “Life” “Streams” and “World” which meant nothing to me. I’m sure it’s a good service but, like I said, I have no reason to switch. Yet. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though.
You asked me to tell you “what FriendFeed does that other aggregators aren’t already doing with a much nicer interface and other, less intrusive means of sharing.” I can’t answer that but I’ll remind you that (i) you don’t need to be the first to do something to be the best and (ii) one person’s heaven is another person’s hell.