If you read this blog even somewhat frequently then you know I’m a little odd. I proudly admit it. I experiment with new Web apps and new ways of doing things that don’t make sense to most people. One thing that I’ve been doing lately (and blogged about) is mashing up Google Alerts, Zemanta for Gmail and Posterous.
Why do I do this? Two reasons really:
- It gives me an interesting way to consume my various Google Alerts
- For me it’s the blogging equivalent of “warming up”
3 alerts I have set up are for Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. To me these are the three most interesting social networking services out there (right now at least, that could always change tomorrow).
FriendFeed Get’s No Love
From the very beginning I’ve noticed a trend Twitter and Facebook get all the attention while FriendFeed is relegated to the fringe.
If you look at this post FriendFeed gets 1 news result and 5 blog posts. Total 6
A Facebook post from the same day gets 9 news results and 5 blog posts. Total 14
Finally a recent Twitter post gets 6 news results and 5 blog posts. Total 11
These results are pretty consistent. Some days Twitter gets more results than Facebook but they both consistently crush FriendFeed results. And to add insult to injury only two FriendFeed results don’t mention Twitter or Facebook. Meaning that FriendFeed is usually only mentioned when someone is doing a round up of new social media tools. It rarely gets it’s own coverage.
Now Google Alerts aren’t perfect but they are a good indicator.
Is FriendFeed Only For Geeks?
I recently asked the question on FriendFeed if the service was getting the love they deserved. Brando gave me this response:
I don’t know if it is respect as much as it is a matter of timing (it’s Twitter’s time for now) and social media fatigue. After a while, people are going to get sick of logging into platforms like this unless it’s really easy to manage, such as with Facebook Connect). I love Friendfeed though, so give it time and you might just see it emerge as a popular platform. – Brandon J. Mendelson
Facebook has been mainstream for a while now. Twitter is just now going mainstream. Will FriendFeed also find it’s way past early adopters? That remains to be seen.
FriendFeed has two components to it: Capabilities and Community
Capabilities
FriendFeed arguably has superior technology behind it compared to Facebook and Twitter. It was built by ex-Googlers (the guys that built Gmail). The amazing search capabilities within FriendFeed makes setting up an account and dumping in all of your online data, well worth it.
The true power of FriendFeed’s capabilities only comes into play when you tweak the default settings and fine tune your preferences. This is a barrier to new users but really I don’t know that this is any more challenging than the set up time that comes from all social media tools. It’s just a matter of the main stream finding enough value to spend the time to do it.
Community
This is the real barrier to entry in FriendFeed. Like most social networks the real real value comes from the community. If you’re not part of the early adopter crowd you may not have anyone to immediately follow on FriendFeed. They do have recommended followers but these are primarily made up of the uber early adopters.
The community at large on FriendFeed (like all social networks) rewards participation. Getting articles liked or commented on can be difficult if you don’t spend much time on their. I’ve noticed a direct relationship between the amount of articles you “like” and the likelihood that your posts will get “liked”.
Since FriendFeed is made up of primarily uber early adopters this means “liking” hundreds of posts a week. If you’re only liking single or double digit number of posts you are much less likely to get noticed.
This is not to say that people on FriendFeed are exclusionary. This is just basic social theory. The more active you are in a community and the more value you add the more likely you are to be accepted and rewarded.
Will FriendFeed succeed? I think so. It offers a great feature set with some great functionality. But like all social networks, the rabid early adopter fans will need to make way for the main stream users.
[UPDATE] There is an additional conversation happening on FriendFeed here.
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About Tac Anderson
Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
