While Twitter Jumps The Shark The Cool Kids Jump To FriendFeed

I’ve been pulling the night shift with the new baby lately, so I was up at 2am when Ashton Kutcher and CNN were in the heat of their battle to 1 million Twitter followers. That next day Oprah had her big Twitter show and sky rocketed the Twitter userbase by over 2 million people. Later that same night I watched Larry King interview Kutcher, P. Diddy and Jimmy Fallon about the wonders of Twitter. I thought this a little too well orchestrated and it seems I’m not the only one. Twitter’s @SteveOuch exposes how almost half of all the many Twilebrity’s followers are fake.

Regardless if this was an elaborate publicity stunt or not, Twitter has begun to lose it’s luster. It’s no longer the next cool thing. Twitter was featured on Oprah, it doesn’t get much more mainstream than that. So where is an uber-geek/early-adopter to go when they want to socially network away from the maddening crowd?

Why The Cool Kids Are Flocking to Friendfeed

While there are many reasons for you to spend more time on Friendfeed, below are a few of the more refreshing aspects of a much under utilized service.

1. A More Coherent Conversation

Often when posting a link to Twitter many people send me comments on what they think about the post. Unfortunately these comments aren’t apparent to others who have seen or commented on the link. On Friendfeed, not only do people have the ability to ‘Like’ the content you post, making it easy for other users to find quality content, they also have the ability to add a comment, making it very easy for a conversation to develop. Often times a simple post is elaborated through commentary into a much larger revelation.

2. A Better Aggregation Of Content

Friendfeed is after all a collection of your personal feeds. One place for all of your Delicioius, Digg, Flickr, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook posts and favorites. Of course the same thing can be accomplished on Twitter using third party services such as Tweetlater, but on Friendfeed it is super easy to focus on the links from one particular service so that you can see only the posts from someones Digg feed for example. Also Twitter only stores your posts for about 2 months (unless you use another third party service such as Tweetake) whereas Friendfeed holds the data from your feeds indefinitely acting as a defacto social bookmarking service.

3. Improved Social Networking

A huge part of social networking is meeting new people. The ability to comment and converse on a particular thread helps to elucidate your personality, inspiring healthy debate and fostering deeper connections. Also an intelligent comment placed in the right spot can get you noticed by some of the blogosphere’s heavy hitters such as Robert Scoble or Louis Gray. Of course let’s not forget about Friendfeed rooms which allow you to congregate with other users with similar interests such as food or greasemonkey.

4. Real Real Time Search

Not only can you search items posted to Friendfeed from Twitter but also links posted from Digg, Delicious, etc. in real time. Friendfeed’s advanced search operators allow for some powerful search possibilities as well.

…Don’t Unplug From Twitter Just Yet

I’m not suggesting that you should abandon Twitter for Friendfeed. Twitter is simply a part of your FF experience as much as Stumbleupon and Facebook. It is the place where you can comment and discuss on the whole of your online experience. The place where the all of you hangs out with the all of everyone else. Friendfeed, while not exactly an infant startup, has yet to be adopted by even many ‘social media experts’ Sign up today and learn the ropes before the rush. Be careful though. You thought Twitter was addicting

Tags: Friendfeed, Twitter

http://www.sharingatwork.com Daniel J. Pritchett

Well said, Jesse! The FF beta released a few weeks ago has taken user interaction to a whole new level. It’s commonplace now for me to share a link via a bookmarklet and then strike up a conversation with other FFers that lasts throughout the day, all without my even having to visit FriendFeed.com.

The continually expanding communications options are what make the FriendFeed platform so great.
http://www.twitter.com/diegoev Diego Espinoza

Hello, Jesse!

Great post, I agree with you about the fact that Friendfeed is one of the best sevices out there, even though not so many people are using it (compared to Twitter). If people on twitter started using Friendfeed as one of their main tools, the result would be incredible, because of the conversations that could be created and all the feedback that you can receive about the things you post.

Cheers.
http://www.continuumq5.com Justin Continuum Q5

It’s all part of evolution better to be with it no doubt.
http://www.ChristinaQuick.com Chris Quick

I was sucked onto Friend Feed via Twitter by the promise of a follow from Robert Scoble. Now here I am, down the rabbit hole, wondering where the hell I am. Thanks for offering some direction!

I SO agree with your assessment of the Oprah affect. When one of my favorite authors (like Marcus Buckingham) lands on the O show I’m both elated (yay, someone who rocks made the big time) and disappointed (aw, all the luster of the fresh-new-hot-thing-I-love is gone). Your post certainly speaks to those of us who want to fancy ourselves ahead of the pack.

Plus I’m excited that FriendFeed is something my MOM hasn’t found yet!

Chris
http://www.newjerseymomsblog.com Emily

What I like about Twitter so much is it’s ease of use. You would have to be an idiot not to get it. It is great for us low-techs out there trying to keep up with technology. That’s why I love it, and that’s why I am willing to ride out this shark!

Though I do agree with you. It was much more fun when it was still “Twitter”? Expect to see my mom twittering any day now. Horrors!

http://jessenewhart.com Jesse Newhart

@Emily Twitter’s ease of use is exactly why it has become SO popular. Basically if you can send a text message you can tweet. Friendfeed is a little bit more complicated. You actually have to know what an RSS feed is, which probably will leave Friendfeed off the radar for most of the web going public.

http://blog.futurweb.net ice_mouton

Hey jesse great article. although as @emily said friendfeed is more for the technical oriented. I did open my FF acount before I even got twitter because I found it was an amazing way to agregate all my socialmedia needs, however even that service is still incomplete as some sites are not included and thus a bit harder to integrate and manage from the FF interface. When dealing with a socialmedia life it becomes more and more difficult to juggle the real life with it. Thus I would encourage the larger public to remain on “simple” social networks such as facebook twitter and myspace, as they are easy enough to maintain and use daily. Still I use friendfeed often and almost all my services are patched into it.

Keep tweeting !
http://myrnaslist.com myrna

I’m wavering back and forth from Twitter, FB and FF. Maybe I shouldn’t say wavering. FF seems like an onslaught(positive and negative) of everyone’s stream of consciousness and because discussions are pervasive, I run back to fb or twitter where such involvement isn’t an issue. FF takes commitment-slowly but surely.. it is nice to have a place to go where ‘regular’ smart people congregate!
http://drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

Great post. I see Twitter and Friendfeed as complimentary — after all, Twitter is lightweight enough to go mobile in a more seamless fashion, and Twitter still has the users. But Friendfeed’s features make it hugely interesting. Facebook liked them well enough to copy them right down to the words “like” and “comment”.
http://scobleizer.com Robert Scoble

It is really great seeing other people joining in the service I love so much. Hope to see you more!
http://tv.factor77.com Jared O’Toole

Great post. I agree that friendfeed is pretty cool. I have been signed up for like 6months and its still on my to-do list of services to really get into. Just hard to find time for all this stuff. I think this post might push me over the top though.
http://executivesguide-twitter.com Christopher S. Rollyson

Jesse, thanks for a pithy and useful brief on Friendfeed’s value prop as a way to build community around RSS feeds (including Twitter). Look forward to looking around (here thanks to @guykawasaki) Cheers- Chris
http://www.moneyjibe.com Mark Minks

Nice article. I agree that comments not being apparent to others who have seen or commented on a Tweet is definitely a constraint that limits dialogue and social interaction on Twitter. It will be quite interesting to see where Twitter and FriendFeed are a year from now!
http://luigicappel.wordpress.com/ Luigi Cappel

Damn I didn’t realise that Twitter doesn’t keep tweets forever, makes sense really given the huge amount of data, much of which is only relevant at a specific point in time. I have tweeted 314 Songwriting Tips and didn’t keep a record of them. Silly really, I should have saved them and written them into a book like Seth Godin!

http://jessenewhart.com Jesse Newhart

@Luigi One of my first practical uses of Friendfeed was to use it as a place to store my tweets.

http://alwaysabounding.org Abounding Media

Great points. I found your blog via FriendFeed…commented on a Scoble post, you followed me, now I’m following you. That’s the beauty of the system; sometimes stumbling upon topics and people that are really interesting. Love it.
http://isthisreallynecessary.com Rob Marquardt

Twitter doesn’t keep tweets forever? I’m able to dial back to my first, no problem.

http://twitter.com/someToast/status/3415103

It’s a simple matter to copy the link off the “more” button from the bottom of your page, paste it in your browser’s address field, then start upping the page number attribute in the URL.

http://jessenewhart.com Jesse Newhart

@Rob Marquardt I don’t know how you can dial back all the way to 2007! I can only get back to January 8th 2009 or page 160.

http://twitter.com/JesseNewhart?max_id=1601658649&page=160&twttr=true

Can anyone else dial back to the beginning of their Twitter stream?

peterstmartin

I can dial back to the beginning but that's only Sept 3rd 2008 for me. Certainly more than 2 months.

http://www.inquecommunications.com Natalie Black

Great Post! I actually was a little late to the FF party, but since I started using it, I love it. You make some great points.
http://isthisreallynecessary.com Rob Marquardt

Ah! That does make it look like there’s a page limit. I can go back to 2007, but I only have 2,703 tweets (which takes me to page 136, so I’m getting close).

Now whether that’s an arbitrary page limit set for performance reasons, or there are no more pages because past that point tweets are being deleted is the question.
http://sheenonline.biz Rahsheen

Definitely agree that FriendFeed is probably the next big thing, especially as the service evolves. The future is real-time and FriendFeed seems to be heading towards tackling it head-on.

As far as celebrities jumping on Twitter, I’m not sure how that even effects me. Sure, they have ungodly numbers of followers, but my experience there is strictly defined by who I follow and who actually talks to or about me specifically (@rahsheen).

Anyways, good stuff!
http://www.louisgray.com Louis Gray

Welcome, Jesse. We’ve appreciated your tweets, and look forward to your taking things up a notch on FriendFeed.
http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/ John Bredehoft

While I also prefer the FriendFeed UI to the Twitter UI, I did disagree with a couple of your more minor points.

First, the idea that Oprah and Ashton can adversely affect your Twitter experience is, in a sense, untrue (other than server load issues, which Twitter has been battling for years). Since I am not following Oprah or Ashton (though I am following Shaq), Oprah’s and Ashton’s Twitter activity doesn’t affect me at all. Twitter, like other social media services (excepting “friend of a friend” situations), only exposes you to the activities of your network, and things said outside of your network usually don’t impact you in any way.

Second, there are situations in which Twitter would be preferable to FriendFeed. Now you like conversation, I like conversation, and Alex Scoble likes conversation, but what if conversation is not your goal? What if your sole goal is to engage in one-way broadcasting? In that case, Twitter is ideal for your needs.

Other than that, I agree with your basic 4 points. Whether or not Ashton agrees is immaterial to my specific needs.
Pingback: StevieB’s Shared Items - April 25, 2009 at Lost in Cyberspace
http://twitter.com/BILL_ROMANOS Bill Romanos

Great post!
I hope to see you even more on FriendFeed.
I love FriendFeed and use it daily.
http://www.closetfoodie.com Ben

Thanks for the post Jesse!

You are such a thoughtful and helpful resource to the social media community. I had no idea about certain aspects of FriendFeed until I read this. (My FriendFeed account is largely dormant and I never look at it.) But you’ve inspired me to go exploring and learn more about it.

By the way… I’m sure many people would really enjoy a video about some features of FriendFeed that are possibly overlooked. I have found your Twitter videos to be invaluable, so I’m sure you have much to offer the online community for FriendFeed as well.
Pingback: Saturday 04.25.2009 — Local ABC affiliate LIES, No RPM today.. and media « Within This Shell
Pingback: Weekend Roundup #45
http://friendfeed.com/promod Promod Sharma

I wanna be a” Cool Kid”!

The post and the comments convinced me to try FF. It looks like a convenient way to organize what matters to you (and that you may want to share). A Google Profile (which is also worth having) seems similar but has the disadvantage of being static.
http://lifestreamblog.com Mark Krynsky

Nice write-up Jesse. #1 is by far the biggest reason I joined FriendFeed early on and have continued to be such an avid user of the service. I just can’t get the kind of engagement and great conversations on any other service as I do on there. Of course I’m a huge fan of Lifestreaming and having media imported directly into the service facilitates a much richer experience for fostering those conversations as well. Glad you wrote this and look forward to seeing you on FriendFeed.
http://twittercism.com Sheamus

As I said to you on Twitter, Jesse, I’m giving FF much more attention and I must admit just a few days in it’s been impressing me more and more. I think comparing it to Twitter is a bit apples/oranges but one thing I do love about FF is it’s easier to catch-up on the days events than it is on Twitter, thanks to the ‘best’ feature and because you can pause it and conveniently look back over what’s taken place. Twitter is so about ‘right now’, with previous days like yesterday’s newspapers.

With all these tech giants/start-ups looking to grab a slice of the Twitter pie, increasingly I think that the ‘winner’ may ultimately be the best aggregator. FF is in a fantastic position to do this. I just wonder if it’s a little too complex for the masses. Unfortunately, no matter how good something is (or might be), unless you cover the Joe and Josephine Public, you’re never going to go stratospheric.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook moves on from copying Twitter to implementing an aggregating system of their own. Or possibly Google have something in development already. Whomever takes the initiative, it needs to be pick-up-and-play simple to start, with enough back-end complexity to appease the early adopters.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in FF for your mobile, I’ve found http://fftogo.com/ to be invaluable.
http://www.ventanazul.com/webzine Alexis Bellido

Hey Jesse, those are really good points.

I’m also one of those ‘converted’ to FriendFeed by reading some comment by Robert Scoble on Twitter. I hate you Robert, you have taken so many hours away from my life

FriendFeed is addictive, really. I can spend hours between my Twitter account on TweetDeck (and I even downgraded my Ubuntu installation from 64 to 32 bits to install AIR and use TweetDeck) and browsing and discussing on FriendFeed.

I think it’s pretty important to point that no matter what service you use, you can use as many as you want, it is vital that you learn to filter who you follow.

I prefer quality over quantity and can’t understand those following the logic of ‘I will follow you if you follow me’. I prefer the ‘I will follow you if you publish something that matters to me’ way.

Cheers.
http://Twitter.com/Ed Ed

Here we go again²
http://www.cagedether.com Daryl Pereira

For those new to these services, check out these presentations:

http://www.cagedether.com/twitter/

http://www.cagedether.com/friendfeed/

I agree that Friendfeed can be a useful complement to Twitter. However there are issues around being present on multiple platforms, especially when it comes to aggregating comments and social interaction around posts/links/Tweets, etc.
http://CaffeinatedMarketing.com Jen Harris

Just this week our Idaho Business Review did a story on Twitter and how/why businesses should/should not be using it.
One of my followers made a comment one time (on the PHONE, no less) that in his industry (he is a speaker & consultant for large firms & associations) Twitter is NOT mainstream & may not be useful for all to use.
See the article here:
http://www.idahobusiness.net/archive.htm/2009/0…
His comments (Steve Miller) are a good perspective that a lot of who life the SM life forget sometimes.
YannR

I would have never sticked to Twitter if those desktop application hadn't appeared, they helped cut the noise and keep on top of the conversations. I was actually asking this morning if there was any Desktop App for FF – http://alertthingy.com, i'll try that. The vertical groups in TweetDeck and Seesmic have made it manageable – I still find FF need to improve it's ability to organize streams and people with minimal friction: one button. I'll try more for sure…
dan thewell

“Also Twitter only stores your posts for about 2 months”

What makes you think this? Every single twitter account I've looked at has posts going back months or years, so I can only think you've been given the wrong end of the stick at some point.

http://JesseNewhart.com JesseNewhart

They only keep 160 pages of updates so if you don't update your account very much it could still have all of your tweets. The 2 month figure was based upon an average, for instance my tweets go back to late January or early February last time I checked.

dan thewell

Wow, thanks for clarifying that. I'd be gutted if I lost my tweets.

http://yagglo.tv Shawn Hickman

I think Twitter and FriendFeed should combine services to make a really killer convo. I know they would but they should. I don't use FF as much but I am starting to use it more, but it is still very ugly. That does bother me:(
http://www.BillionDollarBaloney.blogspot.com BillyWarhol

I love FF but I am surprized it isn't more Popular* I can't believe the way 3rd Party Apps have taken to Twitter like Poop to a Goose!! Twitter is thee Luckiest Startup ever but I hope FF which is Far Superior continues to flourish* )
hamiltonwallace

I'm relatively new to social media and am trying “them all.” FriendFeed is by far the most useful.
http://www.ckrinteracitve.com Arthur

Nice post! Twitter has become a bit to mainstream. FriendFeed on the other hand seems to be more versatile and is a service with extreme potential.
Pingback: Mengel Musings » Blog Archive » Who’s boarding the train to FriendFeed?
http://www.typingthevoid.com Joe

but I'm guessing there's no gorgeous Friend feed clients other than browsers at the mo?
Pingback: FriendFeed down legions panic « TechWag
Pingback: - Fluid’Advance - by Brieuc/Brian Saffré | Web, Advertising, Photo in Australia… with a French touch !
http://www.asiarooms.com/ Amanda Crowe

FriendFeed has less users today than it did last October, according to Comscore. Co-founder Paul Buchheit says that isn’t accurate (and I believe him), but it’s clear that the service hasn’t grown much in the last few months.
http://www.asiarooms.com/ Amanda Crowe

FriendFeed has less users today than it did last October, according to Comscore. Co-founder Paul Buchheit says that isn’t accurate (and I believe him), but it’s clear that the service hasn’t grown much in the last few months.
Pingback: Ich bin jetzt bei Twitter… | lab
Pingback: If you wonder what happens when you get bought out check out FriendFeeds Traffic | TechWag