How FriendFeed Could Become the Ultimate Social Media Tracking Service
FriendFeed, the multi-network activity aggregator co-founded by Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, announced today that it has entered the crowded field of real time search. FriendFeed was already the best way to learn what early adopter social media users were saying about any topic across blogs, Twitter, delicious and other diverse social media sites. If FriendFeed wants to step it up to the next level and challenge business-class conversation trackers, we believe there are four steps the company needs to take.
We think that would make a whole lot of sense. In fact we think that if real time search were turned into a business tool it could challenge social media monitoring services like Radian6, Scout Labs and Sysomos. Here's what we think needs to happen in order for that to become a possibility.
We already use FriendFeed to keep track of who quietly touches our blog posts out around the web. For example, our recent post Google Updates Blog Search - Where's The Innovation hasn't gotten any comments yet - but FriendFeed shows us that leading marketing blogger Andy Beal shared it with his network on Google Reader. That's good to know.
We think FriendFeed could offer some of the most sophisticated social media conversation tracking on the web, if it just took a few steps in particular.
Broaden the Index Beyond Opt-In
Right now FriendFeed tracks what users say and do across more than 40 different social media sites and any RSS feeds (like blog feeds) that users input as part of their profiles. It's a great way to track people and topics on networks you yourself don't participate in.
Because FriendFeed is such a high-profile startup, many people have set up accounts just to try it and have their activities pulled into the site automatically even though they no longer use FriendFeed itself. That adds to the richness of the site's search function.
If FriendFeed wants to offer full-service conversation tracking, though, it is going to need to go beyond the early-adopter crowd that has opted in to having their activities imported into the site. FriendFeed is going to need to proactively discover and import feeds from users of Twitter, Delicious, SlideShare, BrightKite, etc., and bloggers who have not set up FriendFeed accounts. This will increase the usefulness of the site's search function by an order of magnitude.
That's no small task! Many startups have tried to do social-media-wide search in the past but few can achieve the scale and speed needed to pull it off well. Two things make us think FriendFeed can do it. First, who better than the creator of Gmail to achieve new heights in rapid, scalable information delivery? Buchheit isn't the only former Googler on the team, either. Second, FriendFeed has been engineered from the start to import massive amounts of data. A number of the streams FriendFeed pulls in aren't even from RSS feeds as you'd expect; the company's co-founders told ReadWriteWeb in an early interview that they import from a wide variety of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) beyond RSS.
Spam Control
Right now there's a fair amount of spam on FriendFeed and we imagine it's only going to get worse. There's also a lot of people who use the service as their RSS reader - so blog posts and search results show up in your search results even though no one has touched them.
This wouldn't be a difficult problem to solve. FriendFeed is just a few steps away already from allowing searchers to query all sources other than manually imported RSS feeds except when a feed item has one or more comments or "likes" added by a user.
Apply Business Savvy
There are all kinds of ways that FriendFeed could become more business savvy. One way we would suggest is through making more use of LinkedIn.
FriendFeed users have been able to associate their LinkedIn profiles with their FriendFeed accounts since the start of the service, and job changes used to be displayed right along with Tweets and other online activity. It was great. Unfortunately, LinkedIn knows what a pot of gold it sits on and took the noxious step of cutting off these kinds of importing functions by obscuring the HTML on its profile pages. FriendFeed was scraping those pages for changes and it was a great service for everyone. It was pure folly by LinkedIn; it wasn't specifically targeting FriendFeed, but as a result FriendFeed users no longer see when their friends change jobs and so no longer click through to LinkedIn to learn more.
Fortunately FriendFeed hasn't removed LinkedIn as a field that can be viewed by users; it just doesn't update anymore. When you see that someone has said something in your search stream, you can often click through to their LinkedIn profile to see what they do for a living and what their job title is. FriendFeed could display job titles by default on a business version of FriendFeed if LinkedIn was more agreeable, or FriendFeed could look to the much friendlier and social media-savvy Google Profiles instead.
Knowing the job titles of people who have bookmarked your web page in Delicious or shared it in Google Reader would be really valuable.
Some other business-oriented rules, like alerts when certain discussion thresholds have been reached, would go a long way too.
Bring Back Aggregate Analysis
When FriendFeed launched, it offered some great data visualization, showing you the users whose content you "liked" the most and who "liked" your content the most. It showed in a pie chart which services most of your content came in through.
Unfortunately, in a recent redesign aimed to make the service more mainstream-user friendly, those visualizations were eliminated.
Bring that and more back and you've got a viable competitor for services that businesses pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a year for. Add some sentiment analysis, made easier by FriendFeed's "like" feedback function, and you've got a really desirable product.
Will FriendFeed take these steps though? That depends on whether it continues its Quixotic quest to capture more everyday consumer users for a cross-network, real-time conversation aggregator (!) or finds audiences that appreciate its value and starts building out features that they will pay for.
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Lets hope that Friendfeed can monetize their application unlike Twitter, I am sure with Paul Buchheit at the helm Friendfeed will be a huge success.
Josie
www.platform45.com
@platform45
Marshall,
I see the dots you are connecting, but I think there are significant challenges with such a shift for friendfeed. I'll share a few thoughts & also toss up an idea that isn't too far from what you proposed.
First, all of these features already exist in even the most basic commercial social media monitoring tools. Further, the tools that business are paying for also include more advanced features required by brands and agencies to conduct analysis, measurement (ROI) and to enable their teams to scale their listening & engagement (ie: internal workflow, collaboration, team productivity tracking, etc.). The feature gap is much larger than adding auto-content discovery, spam control and sentiment analysis.
Even further... as the social web becomes an integral part of a larger set of business functions which touch the customer (PR/marketing, customer support, sales, community management), brands are also integrating their listening platforms with the business systems they have already invested in to support those functions. Sales teams need an integrated view of the customer (social + CRM) and customer support needs to see their whole case history before responding to issues, etc. The feature gap is rather wide given the state of the listening platforms today.
The next problem is business model. Friendfeed describes itself as "a service that makes it easy to share with friends online.". They would either have to make a hard turn (changing their business completely) or suffer from dilution of focus due to diverse business models and splitting of R&D and other resources. Their current model is the no-touch, free, maximize-user-adoption type model. On the other hand, brands and agencies (who pay) expect top notch customer support, training, help with client engagements - a higher touch business model. Could FF avoid all that by offered something for free? That would just tie up & divert a lot of focus and R&D resources only to pick up a new type of free user and still not meet their full need.
I think the timing, feature and business gap is quite large and they would have to become a fundamentally different company - not the one the investors bought into.
However, there is a commercial opportunity (related idea) that could take advantage of the enhancements you are proposing and not require such a huge business shift: becoming a real-time web data provider. In this model, they would compete with companies like GNIP or Spinn3r who provide commercial web data feeds via APIs. Friendfeed could expand their API set and sell access to something they already have to any companies like Radian6 (or any company building a social application in need of web content) without a huge R&D/resource distraction and no hard shift in their business model. These web data feed services, by the way, sell for thousands per MONTH.
Cheers,
Marcel (@lebrun)
CEO, Radian6
www.radian6.com
Marcel, well put! We'll see how it goes but you've articulated well a more complex reality than I acknowledged in that part of the industry.
friendfeed is not another version of twitter or facebook, it's the best social content aggregator service, the speed is faster than others :)
G'day Marhsall, thoughtful article. Friendfeed is an awesome listening tool. Part of the beauty of Friendfeed at present is the ability to create a Private Group (used to be room) and feed in whatever searches you and keep the place nice and quite.
I do agree with marcel .At the moment the business model of almost all the social networking sites are positioned to bring as many users as possible at the shortest possible time .I cant imagine how they are going to make money unless they change the business model drastically .
http://tekunik.blogspot.com
I only have one problem. When you are Matt Cutts and you put something on Freindfeed, you automatically get up votes or likes or whatever. It becomes unfair to say that anything he says will be more relevant than someone else (bad example because MC really says a lot of great things, but only using him for his numbers).
I think anyone who writes an article that is *unique* should be put into the algorithm (google or friendfeed or facebook or whatever) . I don't know how to do that, but votes can not be one of the biggest factors. This kills any chance for any new writer/blogger/web deisgner coming up to become big and successful, unless a big guy (MC)retweets it or sends it to Friendfeed.
Now, let's say MC has a friend with a new website and a great idea. He will instantly get traffic to his site because MC sends a link his way. Someone like me will have to wait years, or spend tons of money, to get that same traffic. That is the flaw in the system for newcomers. I am focusing my time on building and authority so my *relevant* links will turn into traffic, turning into profit...
Interesting post - which I've just shared on FriendFeed :)
Friendfeed's potential for real-time search is huge. However, it's largely geeks using the service at the moment - so searching for non-geek related topics will be of limited value.
I REALLY enjoy FriendFeed but until the developers figure out how to make it more 'immediately accessible' it's never going to reach its potential.
You know what specifically upsets me about things like this. Not just LinkedIn, but others as well.
THAT IS MY DATA, YOU ARE BORROWING IT, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO CONTROL WHO I WANT TO SEE OR USE IT. Get off of my data.
I wish that the established news sites would run just what those terms and conditions say on various sites. Basically if you upload a file to a site like scribd.com you are giving them ownership of your files, same with youtube.com. Now I think that they think they have to own the data in order to control it. That's sorta like the phone company owning all of your voice calls, if they actually did own them, then they could copy them and distribute them however they wished. Your lack/loss of privacy would be immense in that situation. So why is this any different? Why aren't the Bloggers and press speaking up and saying this is wrong?
If this was data that you owned then it would be much clearer what you could allow to have happen to the data that you work to enter into sites like linkedin.com and such.
Anyway. When does the revolt start? Or is this whole web 2.0 thing just a way for others to invade your privacy and that's ok with everyone? If so why not just give out your SSN, birthdate, etc... on your facebook page? Even they are working to make your life public... Be a good place to just go mainstream...
Wake up and Smell the Coffee...
I agree with Marcel and others. "Free" works great as a model to build brand, community, followers, buzz, etc. But, all of these Social Media app sites and core Social Media sites will have to shift to "upselling" or "upgrading" their installed base with a different feature set at some point to make revenue. Or, subtly introduce reselling comments, input, analysis from their community in an anonymous way so they don't put off members to advertisers - coupling this revenue with integrated sponsorship events for online/offline, online ads, etc. Free only works for so long; once the VC bucks or "sweat equity" excitement wears off you have to move to a real product marketing strategy that focuses on revenue.
I guess that's the million $ question...how will social networking sites make $. Once you start hitting users with fees they they're sure to take thier business, and their friends, to a brand spanking hew FREE site. Watch them fall...weeeee...
thanks admin good post super message
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How FriendFeed Could Become the Ultimate Social Media Tracking Service http://bit.ly/9cqae [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/2443856626]
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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July 16, 2009 9:48 AM
How to Comment About Your Company on Blog Posts, Without Being Spammy http://bit.ly/dSbr2 good example today http://bit.ly/Y3xfx [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/2448912852]
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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July 16, 2009 9:49 AM
What i really appreciate is that FF is already becoming an integrated hub. Just look at the integration between the Google Reader app Feedly, which integrates Friendfeed conversations inline. This really bridges FF and Google Reader in a very useful and neat fashion.
Posted by: Jan Friman
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July 20, 2009 8:24 AM
Not sure I know enough of all this techy stuff to advice FF where to go with their future expansion.
All of these free social media sites have one main goal which is to get as many subscribers as they can to compete with the other guys.
What you eventually get is a 3-ring social circus that will one day explode like a hot air balloon sailing out into cyberspace.
There is no personal privacy anywhere, anymore. You're being push constantly to show more, tell more because you are not just a spectator anymore, but an active participant in the ever-growing social madness.
Cheers