Facebook Cannot Steal FriendFeed's Soul
Recently, Facebook added a new feature to its News Feeds: a "like" button. Now, rather than leaving a throw-away or otherwise unnecessary comment on a friend's status update, you can show your appreciation by just clicking "like" instead. Sound familiar? If not, then it's clear you haven't tried FriendFeed FriendFeed, the social web aggregation service popular among early adopters.
As avid users of FriendFeed will tell you, Facebook's implementation of FriendFeed's features are nothing but a pale imitation of the real thing. Still, there's a growing concern among the service's fans about its sustainability. Although FriendFeed's founders believe they can still innovate to profitability, we're no longer sure that's true.
Early Adopters Love This Stuff
FriendFeed is a web application that's very much like Facebook's News Feed, except that it incorporates far more services. Where Facebook lets you import content to your News Feed from a dozen social web services that range from YouTube to Flickr, FriendFeed offers nearly sixty..including Facebook status updates. That's not the only difference, either. In FriendFeed, commenting on and "liking" items causes them to "bubble up" to the top - that is, it brings popular content up to the top of the page. FriendFeed's "FOAF" (friend-of-a-friend) feature also integrates posts from your friends' friends into your activity stream which can expose you to more interesting people who you might want to follow.
Although on the surface, FriendFeed might appear to be just a more robust version of the Facebook News Feed - a News Feed on steroids - the differences between the two go far beyond a list of features. Where Facebook users track their real-life friends' activities, FriendFeeders tend to track news and topics they're interested in. Most have probably never even met half the people they're subscribed to - they just like what they have to say and the things they share.
Wait...Doesn't FriendFeed Need to Make Money?
What FriendFeed delivers is something that's more than just the sum of its parts. It doesn't have one single killer feature that defines it. It is simply a mashup of pure innovation. So what if Facebook rips off bits and pieces of FriendFeed's better qualities? Why shouldn't mainstream users enjoy this too? For what's innovation's worth if it doesn't spread?
Ah, but therein lies the root of all FriendFeed's problems. The innovation of the social "like," of aggregating your web activity and letting others comment on it - all of this, all of FriendFeed's innovation, is spreading off-site. It's becoming popularized on Facebook, where a good portion of the social network's users have never heard of FriendFeed and (possibly) never will.
That doesn't bother FriendFeed, though. Says co-founder Bret Taylor:
"The ability to comment on and like entries has always been popular on FriendFeed, so it is not surprising to see it appear in other places. We have always been focused on building a unique, but open sharing and communications product, and we think that it's great when users are able to share things in more places. While there will always be some overlap in functionality between FriendFeed and large social networks, we believe there is a lot of room for FriendFeed to grow. The problems of sharing and communication are large, and we don't think they will be solved by a single product or company."
While that's true to a point - we certainly don't think Facebook will solve all our communication problems either - there is a valid concern that if FriendFeed can't cross over into the mainstream, they may not make it, especially given our current economy. Businesses still need to make money...and for web startups to make money they need users. Yes, more users than web celeb Robert Scoble and his 25,000 followers. Unless FriendFeed can prove to us that they can, without a doubt, monetize the long tail of technology early adopters, then they need to grow their user base. Can they do this? How? These remain unanswered questions as of now.
FriendFeed's Real Value
But don't get us wrong, FriendFeed's financial success (or lack thereof) is only one way to measure its real value. Obviously it's the one that investors and business owners care about. If that describes you - if you only care about the bottom line and all the nickels and dimes - then seeing FriendFeed's features swallowed up by the social giant that is Facebook may be worrisome.
However, if you measure success not by money alone but by pure, unadulterated excitement, the feeling that you've witnessed the birth of something new -something different - then it doesn't matter how many features Facebook steals for their own. All that matters is that innovation happened. It happened on FriendFeed. And you liked it.
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FriendFeed is Forever!
Posted by: Tyson Key
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February 10, 2009 2:52 PM
i think we're all pretty harsh on facebook really, sure "likes" are a pretty big feature here on Friendfeed...but come on now, it's not the be all end all. Friendfeeds entire news stream stemmed from Facebook
Posted by: Zee.
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February 10, 2009 2:53 PM
Facebook's version is pretty damn spammy on your own Profile. There's gotta be a way to manage it.
Posted by: Glenn Batuyong
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February 10, 2009 2:55 PM
I am a strong believer that each Social platform has its own set of advantages, and the fact that some of them "steal" things from one another, the basic premise of their existence is very different, and can be used in a parallel fashion, without eating each other.
I've posted some thoughts on my blog, which you can read here: http://cli.gs/Z7gujE
I don't see how this is stealing. Being able to "favorite" (or "like" or whatever you want to call it) an article or piece of content has been around long before FriendFeed and long before Web 2.0 even.
Personally I like the fact that FB added a "like" button... I think FB and FF are currently being used for different purposes. FB is much less about content/links than FF is. Having a simple "like" against status updates is very useful
Posted by: Bindu Reddy
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February 10, 2009 4:28 PM
Sarah - did you notice the 'like's are no longer published on our walls? Facebook keeps screwing with the functions and it's irritating me LOL
Posted by: Mona N.
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February 10, 2009 4:28 PM
I almost betrayed friendfeed by joining tweetdeck in order to find my @ replies. But nothing can compare to FF.
Posted by: Crystalina
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February 10, 2009 4:30 PM
Zuckerbum! The REVOLUTION is HERE!
Posted by: sofarsoshawn
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February 10, 2009 4:36 PM
quality always wins, unless you're not in a capitalist/democratic structure
Posted by: Bob Sonin
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February 10, 2009 4:48 PM
@mona: oh nooes :(
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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February 10, 2009 5:12 PM
There are people that like Facebook (its a large number and growing). There are people that like FriendFeed (that's a very small number and not growing as fast).
Its like Pownce and Twitter. Pownce had better features, but twitter is where the action is.
I wont count FriendFeed as deadpooled yet, and there's value in the offering if they can reposition it. Else its headed to be a niche. The thing they have built is not that hard to build, so the barriers to entry are low.
"Wait...Doesn't FriendFeed Need to Make Money?"
Wait...Doesn't Facebook Need to Make Money too?
Look, I have a vehement disregard for FB, and haven't really gotten into FF that much (but am learning, and just waiting for the addiction to kick in as it surely will), but c'mon let's be honest. Talk about stealing souls here? FF IS Facebook's soul. FB created the newsfeed - which is just one of the many things they have to offer - and FF took that, ran with it, and made an entire site out of it! Granted, with some different ideas, but had FB not invented the feed, who's to say FF would even exist now? Surely it would be a matter of time before someone else invented feeds, but that's not how it went down.
Wow, did I just defend Facebook? I knew I felt weird when I woke up this morning.
To make myself feel better, let's remember that Facebook was potentially founded on theft anyway, as Caroline McCarthy reminded us this morning that FB settled with ConnectU (the original Harvard FB) for $65 million (http://tinyurl.com/d983or).
*Phew...much better now*
The main concern here is people still lack knowledge how to make full use of FriendFeed. If you pratice "smart computing" you'll know how much value FriendFeed
Even with "like", Facebook doesn't have what it takes to capture me. Most social networks don't.
Friendfeed does.
I come from an online world where "social" means communicating with a group, in real-time (think AOL chat, IRC, Winmx, Ares). Friendfeed comes pretty close to that when you are subscribed to about 300 very active users, like I am.
I am too impatient to wait hours for people to respond, and on the busiest of social networks, that is often what it is.
Facebook is very much like its name, with most of its users using it as a mirror to look at themselves. On Facebook I have to wait days before anyone comments, if they comment at all. They don't care what you are doing but they expect you to care about what they are doing.
Friendfeed is also very much like its name. On Friendfeed, the feedback is almost instant, and people give it freely. They become your friends that you share your online life with.
Live chat (like IRC) has often been jokingly called "multiplayer notepad". If that's true, then Friendfeed is "multiplayer RSS reader", a game that is just as much fun to play.
As far as monetizing Friendfeed, if they ever decided to go as a paid service or offer free/paid memberships, I'd gladly fork over some bucks for it, since I feel it's more than worth it to support something I like as much as their service.
I am sure there are many Friendfeed users that feel the same, and it could easily become a member supported site.
Well said, app. You hit it on the head.
FriendFeed better not die. I liked Facebook for a very brief time, and now I can't stand it. I only have to check into it periodically because all my family and some friends are there and not on FF.
It's this simple: I'd pay a monthly fee for Friendfeed. It's USEFUL to me. I don't even look at my Facebook account.
facebook and sharing of information technology needed .... good to hit the target.
Facebook's version is pretty damn spammy on your own Profile.
The ar as monetizing Friendfeed, if they ever decided to go as a paid service or offer free/paid memberships...
This is pretty cool way to collaborate, but to me "crowdsourcing" implies a lot more democracy and broad based collaborative input. This seems more like an edited collection of short stories with similar theme and I'm guessing it'll read