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How FriendFeed Can Teach You About Your Friends

April 10, 2008

FriendFeed Logo

FriendFeed has been out for just a few months and has already established itself as a solid startup with an indefinite amount of potential. Founded by four ex-Googlers, FriendFeed allows you to subscribe to your friends’ updates across 35 social networks and to stay up to date with the content they’re discovering and sharing across the web.

Currently, FriendFeed supports the following social networks and tools:

FriendFeed Services

FriendFeed aggregates social news sites (Digg, Google Reader Shared Items, Mixx, and Reddit), social bookmarking sites (del.icio.us, Furl, Google Shared stuff, Ma.gnolia, and StumbleUpon), status updates (Gmail/Google Talk, Jaiku, Pownce, and Twitter), video (Seesmic, Vimeo, and YouTube), photos (from Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug, and Zoomr), music (from iLike, Last.fm, and Pandora), books (GoodReads and LibraryThing), other miscellaneous web services (Amazon Wishlists, Disqus, LinkedIn, your Netflix Queue, Netvibes, SlideShare, Upcoming events, and Yelp), and finally, your own blog or Tumblr. For your blog, any URL will do, and if you are writing for a blog with multiple authors, FriendFeed parses through the authors and only features blog posts written by you.

FriendFeed: The Service and What it Offers

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The Unfortunate Investment of Social Media (and its Consequences)

February 1, 2008

A week ago, I gave a relatively unbiased account of the “Digg revolt,” a response to Kevin Rose’s post that there were to be algorithmic changes to Digg that likely will impact only the top submitters. After seeing how it panned out, I have to say that I’m not impressed.

Here’s a screenshot of a story that became popular with a whopping 235 Diggs. It was taken the night of January 28, 2008 (approximately 11PM EST):

Digg hits Front Page with 235 Votes

While Digg typically allowed stories to hit the front page within 80-120 votes (the latter being more rare than normal), it’s now requiring almost double the number.

In comparison, here’s another anomaly (for its time). This is a Digg submission from August 17th:

Digg hits Front Page with 142 Votes

The problem is quite evident that the most dedicated and seasoned users are feeling the brunt of the impact. And so, it’s time that I acknowledge what people have been saying for a long time: I think Digg has jumped the shark.

Here’s why:

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Every Social Network is Different: Here’s What You Need to Know

January 25, 2008

Announcing the NewsOver at the Blog Herald, Chris Garrett says that Twitter is changing his news consumption habits.

How do you get your news? In the past I have variously read newspapers, watched TV news bulletins, read news.bbc.co.uk and obviously more recently sites such as Digg. Now it seems I get most of my news from Twitter.

Twitter: The Upside and the Downside

Three days ago, Heath Ledger passed away. The actor was found dead in his apartment. He was 28. As more and more people discovered the news of the actor’s passing, Twitter was inundated with news links and statements of surprise. If you were using Twitter at that time that his death was announced in media outlets, you knew that Ledger had died. It was impossible to ignore it with the hundreds of Tweets that were filled with emotions over the talented young man’s death.

If you use Twitter regularly, you’d see that it wins as a social news site that provides instantaneous news — at least of that caliber. As Chris Garrett explains in his post, if you follow numerous feed bots, you can get the news all the time. The issue, of course, is engagement. If you’re not actively engaged, the news won’t come at you. It’s like any other news medium. If you’re not watching the television, you’ll find out the news later.

This is a preview of Every Social Network is Different: Here’s What You Need to Know. Read the full post (1143 words, 1 image, estimated 4:34 mins reading time)
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Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson Respond to Digg Complaints

January 24, 2008

After Kevin posted to the Digg blog Wednesday evening that there were algorithmic changes to affect the impact of stories that will be promoted to the front page of the site, a “revolt” ensued and an open letter was written. An emergency Drill Down episode was held where numerous Digg users, including regular hosts Andy (MrBabyman), Reg (zaibatsu), and Muhammad (msaleem) spoke with other Digg users, including David Cohn (DigiDave), Karim (supernova17), JD Rucker (oboy), and Jay Fowler (SilentJay74). The initial sentiment was highly negative, and most concluded that the algorithm will penalize users who care much about the community and use it regularly. At first, a Digg embargo was proposed where no Digg users would submit or Digg stories until Monday, January 28th. Eventually, however, founder Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson joined the chat and gave their feedback. Here’s what they said (also covered on Soshable and later posted on Brent Csutoras’s blog):

  • With regards to the new algorithm, Jay says, “algorithms are dynamic in nature. Give it time in your analysis of what’s going on. The math takes time to aggregate.” (Lesson: Stop noticing things the second that they happen.)
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Digg: Your Privacy is an Illusion

January 11, 2008

When Digg came out with its new social features, some folks applauded the move while others despised it. Nearly four months later, the social features appear to be here to stay.

But are they secure?

As Digg becomes more of a social network and less of a social news network (or a hybrid that incorporates both elements), it has a lot of obstacles it needs to face. Besides major usability issues, duplicate stories submissions, and ads that literally scream at you, Digg has yet another issue to deal with: privacy.

Ben pinged me earlier today with a very interesting observation. It turns out that your shouts are not private after all, even if you keep them absolutely hidden. Your friends can see them. Actually, anyone can see them, even if they’re not logged in.

Allow me to illustrate. My current Digg settings prohibit anyone from seeing my Digg shouts.

Digg Shout Preferences

My shouts are blocked for everyone to see, and to ensure this, I’ve saved this selection multiple times.

When I go to my profile, Digg makes a clear assertion that I want my shouts kept private. But look at that red arrow.

Digg Shout Preferences

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