May 24, 2008

Framed: DNA test to prove FriendFeed not to blame if Twitter is killed

I already posted a pretty long piece on the whole Twitter/FriendFeed bitchmeme going on, entitled “The only thing Twitter has to fear, is Twitter itself“, but I could go on and on about this for a long time.

I understand the convention behind the FILL-IN-THE-BLANK-COMPANY is going to kill FILL-IN-THE-BLANK-COMPANY – hell, I use it too sometimes, but I really think those who feel FriendFeed is going to kill Twitter are missing the point of both services.

Twitter does one simple thing: provide 140-character updates, messages, links, etc – FriendFeed does another: pull in your data from various sites, allow for conversations about said data. True, you can post to FriendFeed, and that is sometimes very useful, as FF clearly realized it could be when they first tested it out with FestivusFeed as a joke, but FriendFeed simply does too much else to make it useful in a way that Twitter is currently used.

I am happy that FriendFeed has caught on enough that such a conversation can take place. As I said last December in questioning why more people aren’t using it:

I’d be surprised if FriendFeed doesn’t catch on in 2008.

That is proving true. As is the comparison I made back in October after FriendFeed first launched in beta to Facebook’s News Feed, which is now trying to do part of what FriendFeed does — and I wouldn’t be surprised if it soon adds the ability to comment on Feed data.

All this debate about FriendFeed and Twitter would be over in a second if Twitter would just goddamn work already. I’m still holding out hope for one of my 17 predictions for 2008, that Yahoo will buy Twitter (#16). Those two need each other right now. Wouldn’t it work great with FireEagle too? Come on Yahoo, do it.

Posted at 11:53 pm by MG Siegler
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  • gregory
    i don't think the cool service has been created yet... yes, twitter is (fill in the adjective) and friendfeed is like the notes of today's meeting all nicely typed up ... sure there are links, and doors to other meeting, but imagine a truly semantic service where you could follow not just conversations which can sway and wobble, but meaning. because what is actually interesting is not the conversation but the ideas, and the ideas about the ideas, and the implications ... and yes, they do grow through words, but that is not enough


    we are still in neanderthal times



    say, is this a duplicate page or a phish site? google's captcha is simply separate letters ...
  • Voyagerfan5761
    Pardon me, but I'd rather Google buy Twitter and stabilize it (they're so good at scaling stuff over there, ya know?), and perhaps integrate it with Jaiku so as to expand the user-base. Or something like that. The integration is kind of a half-baked idea in my head.
  • Andrew Baron
    I think Twitter does one thing kinda-well. Friendfeed does that one thing well too. If thats all you want, you can do that on friendfeed nd it seems to be working so far.
  • MG Siegler
    @gregory - It's good to think big, but that seems a bit too big for where we are at the moment. But yes, eventually something like that will be cool.
  • MG Siegler
    @voyager - It's really disappointing what Google has done with Jaiku (nothing). I hope they plan something impressive with it for Android.
  • MG Siegler
    @andrew - I think FriendFeed is too big for using it for a Twitter-like purpose. No matter how many "hides" you use, it will still be too noisy and complicated as compared to Twitter IMHO.
  • Voyagerfan5761
    @MG: Yeah, Jaiku is kind of stagnant under Google's management, while Twitter has been taking off like there's no tomorrow. But a big chunk of that (a paucity of new users) would be solved if Google removed the invitation requirement.
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