In my mind, FriendFeed was indispensible prior to the AIR app. But you knew that… The question is, why does this desktop app make it even easier for you? For me, the Web browser UI has always been just fine.

@Louis - it might not be. My problem is that I need it to scroll faster. I want the info to rush by. Alert Thingy needs to let me throttle it up a bit, to watch it move as fast as an IM window.

This method seems to keep me paying attention better, though, the thingy vs the website.

With or without Alert Thingy, Friendfeed has been indispensable to me.

As for Thingy, the font is too small. English messages is barely OK. Chinese message is unreadable. Thus I won’t use it if I can’t adjust the font size.

Try the scripts at http://ffapps.com

You’ll be surprised at some of the added functionality.

Using Abobe Air is a great move and makes it platform independent. I run a Mac so it helps.

It looks a lot like twirl. I’m installing at the moment, so we’ll see how it goes.

That looks awesome, thanks Chris.

The Alert Thingy seems to be rather polarizing. People either love it, or hate it.

The utility aspect is great, no doubt.

Visually, it could maybe use some work. Kind of hard on the eyes.

Not using it (yet?) myself, but then, FriendFeed is blocked for me during the regular work day. (Yes, I tried explaining to the powers that be that it’s just a feed aggregator, and if we block FriendFeed, we should block xxx and yyy and zzz (used by the security guys) all to no avail.)

In the old days, there was something called a secretary. You told her what you wanted to read out of the newspaper, and she created a clip- file for you of those stories vital your life, to give you the “presidential briefing” of what’s most important.
we’ve automated this system and created filters, but the human nuanced tough is missing, which is the reason for things like Mahalo.

My husband and I were talking about the changing nature of libraries, and whether printed journals will eventually be passe. As much as I like being able to search for books and source material in automated databases, or ordering them online from Amazon, nothing has the same “person feel” as wandering the stacks at a library or bookshop, and finding that the neighboring books around our target may be even more interesting or on point than the target. The neighborhood/company you keep factors are as important as the laser targeted computer one when doing research.

(and frankly I always find things that surprise me in good ways in this search method, taking me well beyond the boolean information search alone).

For some things, the human brain, making connections (and intuitive leaps) factor shouldn’t become totally absolete.

@Whitney: as far as the “personal touch” goes … I think that might be a generational thing. Me, I think you get that same sort of discovery-by-proximity over the wire as you do in brick-and-mortar. I discover new books on Amazon while searching for a single book of interest all the time — sometimes same or similar topic, sometimes same author, different topic, sometimes completely unrelated.

I think the Internet in general, especially with Wikipedia, StumbleUpon, and of course, Google, is conducive to exactly this sort of serendipitous discovery of new and interesting things. And that’s me at 29. I see plenty of younger sorts to whom this sort of learning and discovery is second nature, and I’d bet they’d find your form of discovery to be just as disconnected as their own.

Im personally having trouble keeping up with it all, friends feeder doesn’t really help me. i just dont have the time. when your core business isnt social media it all gets to be a bit much. feeds of all the blogs i follow on google reader is about all i can handle right now. between making music, blogging music, blogging social media, never mind kids, its a lot.
question - who outside the echo chamber has the time?

hmm. this might just bring me back to FriendFeed.

Love Adobe AIR apps!

Thanks for sharing this. In a sea of information, I’m guessing this might be nice when I feel like dipping into feeds of a few select people. I don’t know if I could handle multiple friend feeds, as I do on Twhirl for Twitter updates.

I could get to know several people I already know, better through Alert Thingy/Friendfeed, while acquainting myself with many people new and old through Twhirl/Twitter. So then where does this leave Facebook?

The review done by Corvida at shegeeks.com “convinced” me not to look more into this.

http://shegeeks.net/alert-thingy-friendfeed-desktop-app/

Is she right or wrong?

Trying it out this morning, and liking it so far. We’ll see by the end of the day. It needs a few tweaks, but I’m sure users who like it will give feedback on it.

Overall, I see this making FriendFeed more accessable to me. Instead of one of dozens of tabs in my browser, it sits side-by-side with Twhirl on a second monitor. Nifty. ;-)

Thanks for the tip Chris.

This looks neat. Thanks for sharing, I’m going to have to go check it out.

Chris, I’ve been meaning to call and say how much I have appreciated receiving your updates by RSS feed recently.

So, inspired to do it TODAY by the lovely Darren Rowse … thank you! Your posts are always interesting and often directly useful, and your generosity in sharing your experience is much appreciated.

As a hero of mine for a while (am even more impressed having checked out your linkedin profile!) it really made me smile to see you in my followers on Twitter, so thank you for that too!

Have a lovely week!

:o)

Chris, I have been grappling with how to make Friend Feed work for me. I use Twhirl and I’m now going to download Alert Thingy. Thanks for the tip.
@Whitney, there is nothing more thrilling than the library or bookstore. While I use Amazon to buy and browse books for convenience and Google and other search engines to browse for info, it’s just not the same. @Andrew you are right. I’m 44 and many baby boomers remain loyal to our old fashioned ways.

Grabbing my rocker to read a book. ;-)

[…] good post about Oprah and his suprise at how she admitted to not really knowing too much about it, Chris Brogan just posted about Friend Feeder tools. Mathew Ingram talks about twitter verses facebook news feed. […]