FriendFeed: Hotter Than Ever or Starting to Fade? (POLL)
No matter how you feel about FriendFeed, you can't argue with the fact that it has been one of most popular services among the early adopter set this year. For social media enthusiasts, the site fulfills a need to be always sharing, always active, always involved. In some cases, this led to a self-imposed information overload scenario - there was so much good stuff going on at FriendFeed that it was hard to turn away. But then, as people discovered the service's ability to hide items, they were able to better craft the FriendFeed (over)flow to their needs.
Yet the issue of noise still remains one of the service's biggest hurdles. Although built-in filtering and 3rd-party apps like Noiseriver try to address this problem, they still require a lot of tweaking, which equates to time. For some, this issue becomes a deal-breaker - too much noise, not enough signal. Others claim to love the noise and, by the number of likes and comments they leave, it's apparent that they do.
Just recently, we polled the Twitter audience about their love (or not) of FriendFeed by asking the following question: "If you could only answer YES or NO, how would you answer this question: "Do You Love FriendFeed?" The reason for posing the question this way to not allow for qualified responses like "well, the service has potential, but at the moment it...." or anything of that manner.
In the end, the responses were decidedly mixed, and surprisingly, a lot of NO's turned up. At final count on Twitter it was 16 NO's to 10 YES's. (Of course, on FriendFeed, the ratio was a bit different...and, as is typical on FriendFeed, a conversation ensued.) While most FriendFeed users agree that the service is great for sharing content and starting conversations, a good many will also admit that FriendFeed hasn't yet hit the sweet spot when it comes to combating info overload.
Growing or Fading?
So where does that leave FriendFeed now? On the one hand, you have people like Steve Rubel claiming that he now has over 5000 people following him on Friendfeed - 60% of what he has on Twitter. That certainly seems to show promise for the FriendFeed service. Even with all of Twitter's issues, the service is bordering on mainstream, having already been used for presidential debates, MTV awards shows, and for tweeting news from the Mars Rover. For FriendFeed to even come close to rivaling Twitter numbers, there must be something there.
However, on the other hand, you have the king of early adopters himself, Robert Scoble, sharing a post in Google Reader entitled "Why Have I Been Neglecting FriendFeed?" by Kyle Lacy. In the post, Lacy cites information overload, burnout, and increased work responsibilities among other things, as reasons for his neglect. But what's really interesting is the comment Scoble left when sharing the feed:
Wait! Stop the presses! Robert Scoble tired of FriendFeed?! If Scoble is the canary in the coal mine of social media, what does this mean for the rest of us? (Note: he appears to have gotten over this).
Still, we wonder - is a FriendFeed burnout on the horizon? Or is it only a matter of FriendFeed adding a feature or two to skyrocket it to uber-success?
Now that we've taken the poll of a small Twitter (and FriendFeed!) audience, we thought it would be good to take the pulse of a wider audience that includes our decided readers here on RWW. We hope that you'll not only answer the poll, but share your overall thoughts in the comments - be them here or on FriendFeed. We support both.
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If one answers this question via FF, does it make the question redundant? Anyhoo ask Scoble.
Posted by: thomasrdotorg
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August 20, 2008 7:05 AM
I find I have to pay too close attention to FriendFeed because of the ridiculous amount of noise and it's not as inherently simple to navigate as other services. Even where it is "simple", it's just a visual mess.
It is a service which is still in its early days, and the folks running it are listening people. So do hope to see some more noise filtering features there.
However, there is a dire need of that type of service. Your own CCing the comments to FF shows that. It has a lot of value for the niche(read: Information Addicted People).
Expressing fatigue about a service they once claimed was this panacea is what early adopters do. It's stage 4 in what I called "The Five Stages of Early Adopter Behavior".
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/06/five-stages-of-early-adopter-behavior.html
As FriendFeed has been growing, virally, it's become more than just a discussion point for early adopters, bloggers and tech aficionados. This means it's just as likely that the most popular items will be on food, or music, or baby pictures as on social networking trends and Twitter bashing.
Does FriendFeed have room to improve? Of course! And what's seemed to be a slowing pace of new features, even if it's not true, has got some wondering what the team has planned. I know they are aware of issues with noise and filtering, or in helping users determine their "good friends" as opposed to casual acquaintances, but we aren't in charge of their roadmap, and some of the issues with noise are due to our own mistakes in adding too many people, not hiding enough, or following the wrong sorts of people.
Even the hottest service can't keep doubling month after month. The growth rate may have slowed, but it's not declining by any means. I wouldn't use the word "fade" at all, even if I put my shiny early adopter hat on.
Excellent piece, Sarah. I, too, have found my FF usage waning a bit in the last few weeks due to work schedules. I've simply been too busy to participate. But what hasn't waned is my regular checking-in. FriendFeed is without a doubt my news source now, long ago eclipsing Google Reader. I think the service has too firm of a hold on people to burn out but do think some upgrading is badly needed. A more sophisticated filtering system alone would do wonders for the service. And they need to up the social ante just a bit - allow for private messaging, for instance. It will be very interesting to watch how such a popular product evolves. Something tells me that FriendFeed in two years will be almost unrecognizable - if they play their cards right.
Thanks for the link!
When I first adopted FriendFeed it was easy to keep track of all the information being shared. When more and more people started to join the community I started to freak out.
The question is... What can FriendFeed do (in terms of application design) to fix this problem? Hide functions are cool and all but something else needs to happen.
I stopped using Friendfeed for a while and have started to get back into it as I missed the discussions. Also, turning off notifications in Twhirl really helped. Now I just jump into the river when I'm ready.
Posted by: Dion Hinchcliffe
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August 20, 2008 7:49 AM
I signed up for Friendfeed and I can't see the appeal of it.
First off, I don't really know personally to many people on there.
Also, it seems like a silo. Twitter seems so open and all over the place and full of different uses.
Maybe I don't use social media the "right" way. By that I mean I'm not friending hundreds of people or following strangers.
I keep my real friends and family close. This gives me a manageable "noise" level.
FriendFeed integrated into Facebook is a nice way to update my Facebook newsfeed without having to actively log-in to Facebook for direct posting (or the FriendFeed website).
I just use YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, etc. as normal. FriendFeed records my activity. Facebook contacts can see what I'm up to in once convenient place.
The "noise" and "discovery" problems are exactly the problems that Strands was built to try and solve. Filtering by content and groups, privacy settings (on the feed and/or post level), groups, email and desktop notifications, comment tracking, discovery and recommendations.
We're still in limited beta, but if anyone wants and invite just hit me up at herskowitz (at) strands (dot) com.
voted! @scobleizer's quote makes a point, but I like how articles with the most likes and comments rise to the top.
Posted by: Sarah Austin
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August 20, 2008 9:28 AM
voted too :) be interesting to see how the results pan out...
Posted by: Iain Baker
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August 20, 2008 9:30 AM
Why can't I "like" other people's comments? As on many blogs, the comments are often better than the original post.
The REAL killer app for Friendfeed would be if they made an opposite service of what they do now. Today I see the items of friends I have on Friendfeed, ONLY the friends I have on Friendfeed. Now, what if Friendfeed showed me new stuff from all the friends I have on the different services I have told Friendfeed I use?
So my "new-and-awesome" Friendfeed page shows new pictures from all my Flickr friends (even the ones NOT on Friendfeed), new Vimeo videoes from Vimeo friends, new bookmarks from Delicious friends etc.
Yeah, I know. RSS is invented. And I use that. But it would be nice to have it in a modern interface like Friendfeed, with "like" and comments etc.
@Louis thanks for the link - that's a really great post.
I'm struggling with finding the right balance of how many people to follow and who to follow. I want to follow people who share and post tech news for the most part, but when I limit myself to just them, I find that it's just a rehash of everything I've already seen in GReader (the benefit is the convos, of course).
However, when I attempt to broaden my circle a bit to discover new content/sources/folks, I end up with tons of stuff that I don't find interesting and have to start hitting Hide, HIDE, HIDE...esp on the FOAF entries.
While I love the occasional "funny" pic, flickr posts of sunsets, etc, too, the FOAF feature brings up so much of that stuff that I either have to hide a lot or I get drowned in it. I sort of wish HIDE wasn't all or nothing. I would love the occasional un-techie post to appear, but not every other item. Yet, I have to block it all or see it all, it seems.
I think if I used FF casually, I would love the jokes, etc, but as a tool for work...for finding news/content, I don't get it. Don't get me wrong, I do think it's totally fun/awesome, but it's kind of a timesuck, IMO. If I get really busy, the one thing I can drop is FF...not GReader, not email, not Twitter.
If you have a job (or life) that consumes actual real-world time then FriendFeed is not for you. WAY too much noise and just too much information overkill in general.
I think a lot of people getting tired is due to FriendFeed not releasing many new features lately. Did I hear somewhere that they were redoing their architecture, similar to what Twitter is doing? With lack of new features, we early adopters get bored easily. I'm curious what they've been working on though.
Two positives as the moment.
1 It is teaching me the concept of a lifestream before all the really cool stuff, like Sweetcron, comes online shortly - the new generation blog!
2 With SMS down in the UK, I have turned to FF rather than Twitter to keep up.
I was going to say the exact same thing as Dion above me; Friendfeed became too overwhelming for a while there so I left and came back. Problem solved.
Posted by: acedanger
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August 20, 2008 10:13 AM
voted. i love Friendfeed so much i incorporated it on my blog. i love Friendfeed like i love Flickr. i've been using it ever since along with Twitter, and Google Reader. they all fit together.
but of course there are areas where Friendfeed could improve.
my FF pet peeve is that i can't do a search on stuff i "liked" and "commented". i would also like to have a separate "description" field when adding stuff instead of treating is as just another comment.
how about FF plugins? for example developers can write plugins that could filter FF data and user relationships. these plugins can then appear as extra tabs on the FF menu (like that "everyone" tab).
however, in general i agree with Louis Gray. this talk of Friendfeed "fading" doesn't do justice to an awesome service. FF gave its users enough control on what information to hide and ignore. so this talk of information overload takes the user-responsibility out of the equation. we've got to take responsibility of our experiences people! :)
~C
You're going to have to consult a more credible source if you want to find the pulse of FriendFeed.
For instance, if someone like Mona said she was getting sick of it...I might think it was passing it's prime. :)
I don't see the basis for this article. Its very fluttery although I agree with @carla that it was a fun read. How at this time anyone could suppose that FF is past its peak is foolhearty. FF will evolve alot over the next 12 months and the noise I have to agree with Louis's comment on RWW that noise is due to lazy users not using the tools available and also probably some tweaking is needed which Scoble alluded to in the quote you took from Kyle Lacy's post.
Posted by: Roger Kondrat
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August 20, 2008 8:40 PM
I'm waiting to see how it evolves, because right now, I don't see it solving the problem well (if at all). Also, I still think it's only something early adopters and very net-savy people will ever use. Surely FriendFeed isn't targeting only this segment of the population?
Posted by: Rai
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August 20, 2008 9:13 PM
Sarah, you mention noise being one of the bigger issues and that was echoed today by both Steve Rubel & Robert Scoble in this thread http://bit.ly/239KZg where I chimed in.
There are some great scripts & tools I mention that help curtail the problem, but these are band-aids and ultimately need to be fixed and addressed by FriendFeed.
FriendFeed is a great service but they made a conscious decision to focus on the community and conversation with a reward system in the way of "likes & comments". This turns it into somewhat into a platform to gain recognition which isn't a bad thing, but creates an eco system of noise.
FriendFeed doesn't offer a true Lifestream where people can simply view a reverse chronological stream of data without being altered by external behavior. The lack of that defacto standard from a Lifestreaming perspective may turn off those who aren't there for the conversation but intrigued by Lifestreaming.
So even though FriendFeed may be the current leader the kinks in the armor show that