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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 Attention Economy: Is it Too Much?

October 18, 2007

Bells and WhistlesWeb 2.0 is not only over hyped, but innovators add features to web applications to improve the user experience. Are these extra bells and whistles really improving our lives and making things easier?

To me, the answer to this question is a resounding no.

I don’t fault people for wanting to be diverse. I don’t fault innovators for wanting to innovate. However, I think that a narrower focus is better for survival in the long run.

Interestingly enough, I had this conversation with a close friend who inspired me to blog about a year ago. Blogging on broad topics, he said, was not ideal. Focus on one area; don’t go in different directions. Capture your audience first.

Initially, I didn’t think his advice was that sound. I think blogs can go all directions. After all, Darren Rowse said that your first 10,000 blog posts are always the worst. He’s right about that. But your first 10 blog posts are probably worse than your latter 90, and you improve as you go along. Brian Clark summed it up nicely by urging bloggers to write. You gain experience with every post, every comment, and every ounce of feedback.

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Take the Private Beta Approach, Since It’s Inherently Viral

August 15, 2007

How many times has a private beta piqued your curiosity? How many times has it turned you off because of the nature of it being “private?” What about both?

While the notion of an exclusive crowd joining a social networking site probably does frustrate you (as it did for me on many networks where it took a bit of time for me to score an invite), private betas are still very smart. The buzz surrounding the brand new piece of software is complete word of mouth marketing, and it works quite well in the favor of those who opt-in for such private tests.

Pownce is still in private beta. I compared Pownce to Twitter over a month ago, and people have consequently asked me to invite them (I still have some invites in case you’re wondering). Mashable was able to get a sneak peek of Notifir. I now want in. Donna Fontenot gave me a Grand Central invite last month. My good friend Muhammad Saleem is always giving away invites. And of course, there’s also InviteShare, which was recently acquired by TechCrunch.

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Twitter vs. Pownce: Who Pwns?

July 2, 2007

With the launch of the private beta of Pownce, the new microblogging network launched by Digg celebrities Kevin Rose, Daniel Burka, and Leah Culver, people are claiming that it is the Twitter killer. After a somewhat heated debate with a friend, I’m not so sure that’s the case. At the present time, each microblogging platform has its pros … and its cons. Let’s look at the benefits to each and evaluate to see who is the victor.

Round 1: Interface.

Part A: Layout

Here’s my cute little public page on Pownce.

Pownce User Interface

Compare that with my cute little public page on Twitter.

Twitter User Interface

At first glance, Pownce is the clear winner. The interface is a lot more sleek than Twitter.

Layout Results: Pownce 1, Twitter 0

Part B: Layout Personalization

Let’s take a look at the layout functionality and personalization options.

Pownce doesn’t give you much customization options. You can only choose one of four available themes.

Pownce: Theme Chooser

On the other hand, you can upload a background of your choosing to your Twitter page.

Twitter: Theme Chooser

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