Value in FriendFeed? Oh yes!

Abstract: it’s still sucky but it’ll kill the last two hours of sleep I still got in an instant.

Today, I opened an account with social networks feed aggregator FriendFeed, which came out of closed beta yesterday. Although I initially wondered how this umpteenth service could possibly be of any use, only a few hours later I’m seeing possibilities here.

FriendFeed has been around since late 2007, but it hadn’t really registered with me yet. It started out as just a “better Facebook feed” but seems to be picking up momentum. So, in a rare display of acting like I know something, here is my review.

More of the same

The principle is simple: create a page of your own, let FriendFeed know which services’ feeds it should track and publish the new, combined URL — or the RSS feed even.

Yay!

The curious bit about this, of course, is that it would allow anyone with an interest in me to add my Flickr or Last.fm feeds and aggregate these in a spot they can call whatever they like.

Such as friendfeed.com/thebiggestjerkaround.

Obviously, this does happen elsewhere too, and if that bothered me, I wouldn’t have accounts in those places or care to update them in the first place. In fact, like you, I’m a sucker for displaying my ego wherever I can and thus: I started adding services.

One thing FriendFeed does ask your permission for, is installing an application on your Facebook profile and accessing your GMail’s contact list to check for and invite friends.

Because it grabs your entire contact list (instead of the most contacted) this resulted in me getting a considerable number of “message undeliverable” replies and quite a few surprised shouts from people I hadn’t spoken to in ages.

Also, it confused those who don’t use social networking services much at all, and made them think I actually added all these entries manually, while at work.

The thought! The insult!

A lot of feed goodness

So, what is FriendFeed good for?

Obviously, it’s yet another easy way to aggregate all your stuff, and of course it’s free. In fact, it offers quite a bit of possibilities, and it had certainly been a while since I had been unable to check all the boxes asking me to connect profile pages. Honestly, I’d never even heard of Yelp.

It seems even living on the web leaves me ignorant at times. But whatever.

More surprises

At first, I wasn’t sure how FriendFeed would be something I’d actually use, instead of having the benefit of signing up early so I could claim my username.

Then I started to play around a bit, and discovered that instead of a mere aggregator, FriendFeed is also somewhat of a micromedia tool.

Fore one, you can add messages to items you posted. Kind of like commenting on your own tweets, perhaps to apologize for being drunk or to add a bit of context.

Moreover, you can do this with other people’s items.

Finally, it turned out that the “Share something” button at the top isn’t just there to merely add other services, it also allows you to post stand-alone messages and turn them into a link if you like.

As you can see, you can add a comment to that too. And, technically, you could use FriendFeed just for posting small microposts of your own and have people comment on them.

In fact you could create several separate accounts on FriendFeed: one for blog entries and tumbles, one for links, one for Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce traffic and so on.

FF = micro-micro-blogging = Tumblr Nano?

All in all, then, this adds rather a lot of value to FriendFeed I hadn’t seen at first glance at all. I can imagine quite a few are still hidden. Or in the pipeline. So, I can also see the features expanded quite a bit soon, so they combine and add to those of other similar services (file sharing, direct messaging, favouriting, re-, um “blogging” and adding custom feeds not available in the list…)

And, if all else fails for you, and you still don’t see any value in that, perhaps just use FriendFeed to track other people’s feeds without having to visit their individual services.

Like adding the Flickr and Upcoming streams of all those hot chicks you like to stalk.

So it’s great?

Well, no. Not entirely. Not yet at least.

First off, it’s not really pretty. One of the biggest mistakes to make when launching a service at the end of 2007 is to make it look like it’s been around since 2006. Sorry, but that’s how fast it goes and pale blue shiny logos just don’t do it anymore. You’d expect more from former Gmail designers.

Another drawback is that users don’t have much influence on how to present or organize their items. Some Ajaxy goodness that allows you to drag around stuff would be nice. And something that would kill the aforementioned blue.

Finally, the service came across as a bit unresponsive at times. I tried deleting an item I had added, but it froze the page and was still there when I checked back later. Now that Twitter seems to have overcome most of its downtime problems, I’m not sure I’m ready for another one of the kind.

But then again, FriendFeed may now be public, it is still in beta.

I can has verdict then?

So, I’m still waiting for a chance to work with a really good aggregator for once. One that looks great, is hassle-free and… stays in business. That may well be FriendFeed, and somehow, judging by the vibe it creates, notably on Twitter, I hope and think it will be.

Come to think of it, I’m rather taken in with the idea of using a lifestream URL as sole item on a business card. What else would one need?

Previously, I had been sulking over losing my lifestream on Natuba, when they switched focus and decided to become some ugly and ill-performing MySpace clone. There, at least, I could modify the CSS of my stream and hey, I just knew we all love pink background-coloured links set in giganormous type, right?

But now, I’m putting my chips on FriendFeed. About time we got a new plaything.

Tags: aggregators, feeds, friendfeed, rss, social networks, twitter