FriendFeed- The Hidden Conversation

July 27, 2008 · Comments

friendfeed If “joining the conversation” is one goal of your exploration of social media, it’s almost become a requirement that you maintain a presence on FriendFeed. It’s an application that acts as a central aggregation and discussion point for many of your other Internet points of presence. You can add your YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Jaiku, Brightkite, Upcoming.org, Last.fm, and a gazillion other services into it, and then when you create activity on any of those services, other people following your activity stream can form commentary around what you’ve posted.

First, it’s something you might consider joining so that you can aggregate your content into one stream. Second, it will give you a new audience for some of your content, and some different interactions will happen there than on the primary sites it’s reporting on. For instance, if someone posts information to Twitter, and that person has Twitter added to their FriendFeed account, others using the service can comment on that person’s tweets:

friendfeed2

Second, I’m finding that FriendFeed finds me interesting information from the larger body of work of people I’m following. So, for example, if I look at Louis Gray’s FriendFeed stream, I see three Google Reader Shared Items, a blog post, some Disqus comment threads, pictures, and a Google Talk status that led to a conversation unto itself. It’s rich content.

It’s also drinking from the firehose, so not exactly everyone’s cup of tea (to mix metaphors).

Should you try it out? Yes. Is it for everyone? No. If you’re reasonably new to social media and networks, skip it for now, I say. There’s a lot to figure out, so don’t get too wrapped up in this right now.

What’s your take? Are you there? Have you checked it out?

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  • Like many other things, FriendFeed is a wide-open spigot that needs some careful consideration. I think if it's well-managed it can be a valuable early warning radar for journalists.
  • Here's what I just noticed, and I'm pretty new to the whole scene so take my opinion for what it's worth. Last week, during the early evening news casts, sometime between 6-7pm, my brother was flipping through the stations on the tube. I had my laptop in front of me. Summize tracked nearly perfectly with the day's headlines, but Friendfeed wasn't even close. Hurricane Dolly? All over the TV news and Twitter, but nowhere in my FF. Obama visiting Europe? On every newscast, top story. Barely touched at all with Friendfeed. Either the people I'm following on FF just have more widely varied interests, or the banality of every day life that comes out of this experience is just more captivating than all the "news" the networks choose to let us see.
  • sd
    I subscribe to Robert Scoble's friendfeed feed several months ago.
    A lot of other people decided to sign up for the service but I have to say there's just too much information to sort through.
    What I need is search on Twitter and Friendfeed. Search I can subscribe to.
    There's too much information.
    I follow 86 blogs, I don't need to know when someone decides to go for a run or enjoys his coffee. It's not that I don't care if they are friends of mine, but I just don't like looking for all the information I need to know.
    And that's a problem on blogs as well. I think it's time for a consolidation.
    Twitter and Friendfeed go the other way, and it makes matters worse.
    I just don't have the time to go look for information.
  • Will King
    sd said, "What I need is search on Twitter and Friendfeed. Search I can subscribe to."

    This can be done on both Twitter and FriendFeed.

    On FriendFeed, do a search (advanced search will let you narrow your options). At the bottom of the search results is an RSS link you can subscribe to.

    At Twitter, use search.twitter.com (or summize.com still works, too - same thing). Once you get your results, look to the upper right of the results page. There's an RSS feed link for the results. There are also advanced options available.

    Hope this helps.
  • Good advice for newer members. The mixed metaphor was close: it is a firehose, which makes pouring that cup so hard for some. You need a bucket.

    Unlike Twitter, I think the conversations are more focused and clustered. That's good conversation, but it's also useful archival information if you show up late to the party.

    Just like Twitter was "hard to get at first", FriendFeed (FF) has hidden benefits. FF can be used in very creative ways. I'm sure you'll post about those in the future (Rooms, search, how to use FF as a bookmarking tool, etc.).

    FriendFeed can be overwhelming but rewarding. I have found that to get the most of FF, you just have to plunge into those remarkable conversations over there. It's free!
  • I like FriendFeed for aggregating all my stuff into one place. I'm divided over the idea that people comment on FF as opposed to on the original content (like this blog post). But what makes it tough for me to really like is I can't find a way to be notified of comments on FF.

    One thing I love about gReader is I am notified of new content and comments. I feel like if I step away from FF (or Twitter for that matter) I miss a lot. gReader lets me catch up.
  • I agree, it is a useful tool and the aggregation of all the other social media networks you are part of, helps to keep some sort of overview.
    But at the same time I have to say, that there are already copies of friendfeed like Plurk or Plaxo and they are good too. So which of them shall I use to aggregate my stories in the internet?
  • I am not loving Friendfeed. Yesterday I finally got fed up enough to ask where I could filter out twitter streams from it.

    As much as I love the conversational aspects, it's just another huge feed to process of EVERYTHING that everyone is doing. If you have some specific useful way of using it, I'd love to hear it.

    Who has the time to listen to everything?
  • Thanks for the post :)
    I'm new on FriendFeed and that really helped me out!
  • FriendFeed definitely has some serious potential for a deeper conversation online. Great tips!

    Maria Reyes-McDavis
  • I went in a for a few deep dives and a community experiment or two
    http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/friendfeed/

    The initial reaction from many people is that of redundancy -because they see some content twice. There are ways to tweak and filter, but that comes with immersing.

    The best value of FriendFeed for me so far is the rooms feature. We have an NPTECH room - they are like online forums from mid-1990s - but what is nice - is that you have to intentionally share something. So, a nice way to sip some tea.

    Like everything else -you can't set up a profile and it let stream - if your goal is conversation. You have to comment on other people's streams, etc.
  • I have trouble getting into FF for many of the reasons mentioned above - the primary one being the firehouse quality of the stream. Twitter remains my #1 source of quality info.

    I have carefully selected who I follow on Twitter (mostly folks from Portland, OR - and a host of others) Through this stream I"m kept informed of the news I can use. I find out about new posts, tools, sites, and even breaking "real life" news comes to me faster through Twitter than any other tool.

    Twhirl brings FF into the realm of real time, but unless I see the Fail Whale, even identica's superior tool can't usurp Twitter.
  • I find FriendFeed to be a good place to graduate to if I'm following someone on Twitter. FriendFeed, in my opinion, is more focused on getting the firehose from who you already think are interesting. I don't automatically add everyone to FriendFeed that I follow on Twitter. There are some that I've added for a bit then removed because they were trying to be get attention by cross-posting everything but it wasn't substantive for others to comment. Be it one or many, I never consider a conversation to be noise, ideas are being passed back and forth. The noise is the people with all their 'look at me posts and tweets.'
    My goal when I check Summize,err...search.twitter.com, is to see what EVERYONE things about a certain topic or issue. On FriendFeed, I want to see what my friends are thinking about.
  • thaumata
    I'm new to friendfeed, and although my initial reaction was, "this is useful and cool," it was only an hour or so before I realized I was probably flooding people with content. I post often, on many sites, and the fact is that some people just don't care what I did on my family vacation.

    In the end, I created a Tumblr account and only that goes through FF. Instead of feeding every little stream in there automatically, I curate it by hand, bringing people the best I have to offer, with links to find more if they are so inclined.

    I kind of wish everyone would do this. I understand that you really do find a gem in the mess sometimes, but mostly I think we'd all do better to work to reduce the feedback-echo that currently exists on the web.
  • Great idea @thaumata - I think doing what you're doing, with the addition of your Twitter stream and maybe the feed from your primary blog might be a nice touch too.

    There are plenty of tools (greasemonkey scripts and FF addons) out there that others can use to limit your stream (see http://internetductape.com).
  • FriendFeed is great for me to create 1 stream for everything I do, as that "everything" grows. However, I am presently in a mode of expunging some of my less than necessary feeds. For instance, I had really enjoyed Plurk, but have found that to be just another conversation to "keep up with" so the fun aspect went out the door.

    My next goal is fine-tuning and exploring FriendFeed to more quickly get to the "gems" would be nice.

    Additionally, I am beginning to wonder about tracking views on my profile and what people are interested in within my stream. This would be wonderful feedback as to where content may or may not be seeing some pick-up...

    If anyone has any tips in that area, I would most certainly welcome them...
  • And of course, you can see below these comments that FriendFeed folks are talking about it too, right?
  • Hi Chris

    I wrote a related article but I focused more on where FF was going. Perhaps it adds value to your discussion.

    http://tinyurl.com/5l6c2s
  • I started a discussion with colleagues in FriendFeed to help me understand. My fave space there is the rooms, where we can have a conversation without having to follow each other as on Twitter. They pointed out other features not readily apparent to me, such as the ability to hide types of posts of others, and the "best of day/week/month" in the top right corner. All helpful.

    I love twitter, but it is real-time (synchronous) discussion. FriendFeed is asynchronous (allows you to post in the same conversation at different times, as with a forum) so this helps manage your time better, you don't have to always have it "on".

    I'm still learning my way around, but interested in what distinguished FriendFeed from the others.

    Cheers,
    Connie
  • One thing I love about gReader is I am notified of new content and comments. I feel like if I step away from FF (or Twitter for that matter) I miss a lot. gReader lets me catch up.
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