Has friendfeed Hit the Wall?
Friendfeed never got the adoption rate that Twitter has, but the active friendfeed users were devout supporters. For a while, last year, there were nonstop threads on friendfeed, discussing why it was the superior platform to Twitter.
For those who have not used it, friendfeed shares much in common with Twitter. At it's basis, it's a microblogging platform that uses the "follower" approach to share information. But the main difference is while Twitter takes more of a broadcast approach, friendfeed has always been about real-time conversations. One of the main drawbacks to Twitter is that conversations are not threaded. In other words, if you reply to one of my Tweets, it's not easy for users to see which Tweet you responded to. You see snippets but not the full conversation. friendfeed, conversely, is all about the conversation. When you click on any friendfeed comment, you'll see the full threaded conversation. At first blush, this is a powerful advantage, but it also becomes an incredible time-suck.
Twitter is like casual dating. You can check in a few times each day for a few minutes and move on with the other activities in your life. Friendfeed is like dating that super-obsessive, ultra-needy person who doesn't seem to work or have any other full-time responsibilities. While the relationship may be just as superficial, it's completely exhausting. It seems that she is always there and when you pop in for a quick hello, you soon realize you've spent hours.
While Twitter certainly has won the mindshare battle, it seems that it's also winning the underlying war.
Friendfeed remains the communications platform of choice for many of the digerati, but there's evidence that its growth has hit a wall.
One of the early advantages to microblogging client Twhirl (from Loic LeMeur's Seesmic) was its support for both platforms. Twhirl has now been replaced by the new Seesmic desktop, which competes with TweetDeck for Twitter desktop client market share. Yet this new version of Seesmic focuses on Twitter and provides no support for friendfeed. While Seesmic may continue to support its Twhirl client, my guess is they will focus their efforts on the new desktop app, so this is a bad sign for friendfeed users.
Edelman's Steve Rubel, who spent a lot of time on both platforms last year recently indicated he's lost interest in friendfeed and now spends his time largely on Twitter.
And, even Robert Scoble, emperor of the digerati, who clearly spends much of his day on friendfeed, recently acknowledged (on friendfeed, of course) that while he receives many new followers each day on Twitter, his follower growth on friendfeedhas plateaued. According to Scoble:
People follow on Twitter. My friendfeed rates have gone way down.
I looked into a few people I've recommended. On Twitter they are getting followed at a MUCH higher rate than their friendfeed accounts are.
That's not a good trend for friendfeed, because it means that there's a much stronger power law in effect there where people like me will have more power to get content noticed than new people who come along"
So, is it the end for Friendfeed? That's hard to say. It's likely that Friendfeed will continue to exist as a niche platform for the most geeky of the social media elite, at least for a while. And, perhaps as Twitter finds itself becoming more mainstream, friendfeed will become the refuge for those who wish to avoid the more commercial aspects that are already cropping up. But at least for now, it's clear that Twitter is where the growth is and where most social media participants (at least those who want to pick one platform) should focus their time.
What do you think?
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