May 24, 2008
I am one of the FriendFeed early adopters, signing up for the service the moment I heard about it after they initially launched their closed beta. I’m not too sure when I started mucking around with FriendFeed but I can tell you that I fell in love with it immediately. The simple interface and ability to aggregate my various social interactions from around the net really excited my geek-loving loins.
But my interest with FriendFeed stems from more than an interest in what many call lifestreaming or aggregating. I really adore FriendFeed because I love the idea of aggregation. I really wanted to launch a similar lifestream-like net-interaction aggregation site. Right after Chris Davis released his lifestream plug-in for Wordpress I thought it would be a lot of fun to create a site which aggregates peoples interactivity, essentially similar to what FriendFeed is currently doing. Through my own lack of free time I was never able to get far on the site. If you think you might be interested, head over to lifestre.am for a quick looksie.
But I digress.
What I really want to talk about is using FriendFeed over Twitter. The latter has been plagued by horrible outages essentially throughout it’s entire life. I can not really think of a solid period of time where Twitter has not seen a lot of downtime.
This is in start contrast to FriendFeed, which I have yet to see go down hard like we are all so used to seeing with Twitter. It’s no wonder either; the guys behind FriendFeed helped engineer Google Reader and Gmail. These folks know what they’re doing, and know about scalability. This is not to say the Twitter folks are clueless; in fact, quite the opposite. The same team which brought us Twitter also brought us Blogger…another exceptional service.
FriendFeed can be used in much the same manner which Twitter can be used, but without the limitations or downtime. I propose using FriendFeed over Twitter by building a Twitter-like interface for FriendFeed which makes sole use of FriendFeed entries for micro-blogging. Rather than having this interface display the aggregated data which you see on FriendFeed, it should only display “friendfeed” generated data from the “share something” dialog within FriendFeed.
Using an interface, and FriendFeed data, in such a manner should be a simple, drop-dead, drop-in replacement for Twitter. The nice thing about such an idea, at least in my mind, is following conversations on FriendFeed is so much easier thanks to commenting on entries whereas on Twitter it’s quite difficult unless a conversational search engine is used. Developing such an interface should be fairly easy, thanks to the FriendFeed API.
I think this type of interface is important for two reasons. For one, it is a dead simple replacement for Twitter, performing the same “communications platform” functions which Twitter currently handles decently. More importantly, the noise is removed from FriendFeed, allowing people to focus on a single, well executed idea. I love all that noise, and find much of it very valuable, but quite a few people who adore Twitters minimalism and simplicity point to FriendFeed’s noise as a reason for disliking the site. It is vital to offer a more simplistic, less noisy interface in order for FriendFeed to see widespread adoption…and this idea accomplishes just that.
Given the nature of the lack of free time I have I do not know if I can pull this off. It seems like FriendFeed could do a great job integrating this in to their own interface somehow, but I get the feeling a third-party developer will need to do the leg work ahead of time.
What do you think? Will such an idea work? Is it even worthwhile? More importantly, do you even use Twitter?
May 4, 2008
I am elated to read about the talks breaking down between Microsoft and Yahoo!. I can only imagine that most Yahoo! employees are relieved, or will be once they hear the news. The past couple months have been extremely hectic and stress-filled, wondering and waiting for the evil business machinations to work themselves out like a chess game gone wrong.
Microsoft will announce shortly that they have withdrawn their offer to acquire Yahoo. Talks between the two companies and their advisors broke down earlier today, according to a source close to Microsoft, after a failure to come to agreement on price and other terms.
Bus seriously, from a realistic perspective, the deal never made any sense whatsoever. An acquisition and merge of this magnitude was bound for failure, even if the deal went through. Microsoft is just too incapable of adapting for the web, so they shot for the largest smart company who was perceived as being “in trouble.” Yahoo! apparently fit that profile.
The culture at the two companies are completely polar opposites. Microsoft is mired in red tape and politics whereas Yahoo! aims to get things done. Yahoo!’s employees actually enjoy working for the company, many of them never considering working for Microsoft because of the evil business practices of the corporate behemoth. On the other hand, Microsoft employees work for the company because of the excellent salary and benefits. I have not found too many Microsoft employees who take a huge amount of pride in their work, which is completely contrary to almost any Yahoo! employee.
Could you really see these Yahoo! employee’s taking pride in working for Microsoft, especially if the acquisition was completed under hostile terms? I know I sure as hell never expected the Yahoos to be happy about the prospect of working for one of the most despised companies in the technology sector. Having been through similar moves, I know Microsoft and Yahoo! are better off having not completed this ill-fated acquisition.
It should be interesting to see what final straw broke the proverbial camel’s back, sending both parties on their merry way with their tails between their legs.
Most people commenting on the fallout of the acquisition attempt are saying this is a Microsoft victory. I beg to differ; the fact that Microsoft walked away whimpering gives me the impression that Yahoo! is the big winner here. David told Goliath where to stick it, Goliath listened and walked away like the bitch he really is behind closed doors.
Surely Yahoo! will see this as a victory as well, potentially using the outcome to revitalize the company. That can only be a good thing(tm) because Google needs real competition!
May 1, 2008
The excellent 9rules blogging network relaunched today, opting to shift focus back to where it belonged all along: the content. All the superfluous features which were added in the previous incarnation have been stripped away, finally allowing posts from the very members that comprise the network to be front and center for all visitors to see. Many would argue that 9rules should never have shied away from their roots in the first place; what’s done is done, and it feels much better to see the Triad steer the ship in this new albeit old direction.
All the Notes, Clips and other “fluff” designed to keep people on the 9rules.com domain has been migrated to Chawlk. If you are yearning to participate in a community-like site which offers a low signal-to-noise ratio then definitely check out Chawlk. Since the site is not “mainstream” you will not find the standard internet trolls devouring newbs ever 17th second. But enough of Chawlk.
I really adore what Tyme, Scrivs and Mike have done with 9rules. By allowing the network to focus on the members I get the feeling members will have a newfound invigoration to focus on providing top notch content. After all, the content is what makes 9rules so uniquely exciting and refreshing.
The updated minimalistic design definitely aids in presenting the content in a much better manner than 9rules ever has done previously. Add in the ability to customize which communities interest you the most, and you can see why the new-yet-old-yet-new 9rules is just the change the network needed to be revitalized. Hopefully 9rules will recapture much of the charm it had in it’s heyday.
My hat is off to the great 9rules team of Tyme, Scrivs and Mike. Congrats on a wickedly cool update. You guys have always and will always rock!
