I created a FriendFeed account a few months back but haven’t done much with it since. I liked the idea of linking all my social profiles together and getting all my online ducks in the same pond, but just didn’t feel like FriendFeed was really where most of my friends were. I had created a strong network on Twitter and didn’t want to have to go manually re-subscribe to all my Twitter pals on FriendFeed (and many of them didn’t have FriendFeed accounts). I liked the idea of some of the features (being able to comment on what someone tweets, bookmarks, or posts, for example) but couldn’t get into the habit of visiting the site more than maybe once a week. Even with the redesign that just launched, it just wasn’t sticky enough for me.
However, in the last few days I’ve had an influx of subsciption requests (currently my FriendFeed account is protected). Many of these have come from people whom I’ve nurtured relationships with on Twitter and I’m happy to let them subscribe and get a fuller picture of what I’m doing online. Some subscription requests seem fairly dubious and spammy and I’ve hit the ignore button on those. It’s not just me who’s noticed the increase:
So what’s driving this spike in FriendFeed interest? Is there another Ashton/CNN race that I’m unaware of? Or is Jesse Newhart right and the “cool kids” are now moving away from Twitter as it becomes more mainstream, commercialized, spammy? He argues that FriendFeed offers a “more coherent conversation” and “better aggregation of content,” but I’m not entirely sold.
On the one hand, FriendFeed just seems like too much information for me. Follow someone like Robert Scoble and your FriendFeed stream turns into an endless aggregation of people liking and commenting on every single thing he posts. True, I don’t HAVE to follow anyone, just as with Twitter, but trying to keep the noise level down on FriendFeed means being very selective and not following any of the “big guns” who post prolificly and have legions of fans/harpies vying for attention via “likes” and comments. And it all comes through so fast that even though I follow just a tiny, tiny handful of people right now, it’s cluttered.
On the other hand, FriendFeed isn’t enough informaiton – meaning that for most of the people I subscribe to, it’s nothing more than a regurgitation of their Twitter stream. Why shouldn’t I just keep using Twitter, then? FriendFeed might add the occasional Flickr image or Delicious save, but for me, it’s mostly just Tweets.
To be fair, I’m sure that I’m not really using FriendFeed “the right way.” I haven’t set up or joined groups yet and I don’t have my feed segmented. I really haven’t taken the time to force myself to become comfortable with it, and maybe I won’t have to for a while.
I’m not sure if this increased interest means that the winds are changing and people will start rushing to FriendFeed soon. But if the point of social media is to “go where the conversations are” then we may all be heading toward FriendFeed sooner than we think.
Do you use FriendFeed? Is it a substitute of compliment to Twitter for you? How do you sort through all the information it provides?
Most of us aren’t lucky enough to have a personal assistant who maps out our schedule for us each week and tells us exactly where to go, when to be there and what to expect. With so much information on social media rip-roaring through the interwebz and changing constantly, it’s hard to keep up! But I’ve got your back. Take a deep breath and refer to this day-by-day guide to help you keep up with popular weekly goings-on in social media:
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