The downside for me? I invest time in things that WILL BE not that are. That’s always been what keeps my interest and now that I know that FriendFeed probably will not be, even if it takes five years to totally die, I’ve lost a great deal of interest in it. – Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble: So Who is Leaving FriendFeed.
An interesting thread yesterday from my friend Robert Scoble on Friendfeed. Having reflected more on the Facebook acquisition I can see Scoble’s point. Scoble’s always been an early adopter’s early adopter. He’s always been about going where the ball is headed, not where it’s at.
After sleeping on the acquisition news I have two thoughts.
1. Maybe, just maybe, enough of the really good FriendFeed features will somehow make their way into Facebook and Facebook will actually get tolerable enough to use. Actually I’m not optimistic, but I will begin spending more time and using Facebook more because of this. I logged on yesterday for the first time in a while and I’ll probably be spending at least some time there every day now.
2. The FriendFeed acquisition creates a vacuum for a kick-ass life-streaming service. I signed up earlier today and played around with Posterious, but it felt nothing like Friendfeed to me. Last night Scoble suggested Ning. He also said it may end up being Google Wave. If anyone knows how I can try out Google Wave I’d be interested. But actually I think the real opportunity very well may be for, of all things, Scoble himself to create the new place to be online. Scoble’s got a big enough web presence to create the seed necessary to start a vibrant community and he’s got a good jump start with this with his new Building43 efforts. It would be really great to see someone with his vision turn Building 43 into the next FriendFeed.
I’d like to try Google Wave too. I feel the protocol could certainly be used to make a social media service like FriendFeed.
I don’t care who Facebook buys or how good its features get.
I REFUSE to do business with a company that invades the privacy of even NON-MEMBERS. Facebook BEACON gathers purchase data of ALL the transactions made by customers of its BEACON partners, even of NON-FACEBOOK USERS!
http://pcworld.about.com/od/onlineprivacy/Facebook-s-Beacon-Ad-System-Al.htm
Due to the horrendous PR backlash, Facebook offered a way to members to opt-out of displaying that information. However, there is no way to entirely opt-out of Facebook’s gathering of that information altogether.
Needless to say, I refuse to do business with Facebook’s Beacon affiliate websites, as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon#Partner_websites
This is all much ado about nothing. Friendfeed may be owned by Facebook, but they aren’t going to make drastic changes to it. If anything, the service will have even better support. I understand that something like this could change the culture by bringing more mainstream people to the service, but that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway. I say good for them, if Facebook does drop the ball, I’m sure that there are smart entrepreneurs who will step in and build another one.