Is FriendFeed A Twitter Competitor?

Posted on | November 3, 2008 | No Comments

FriendFeed is a program that allows one to keep current with your friends’ or family’s shared files such as photos, videos, websites or music selections.  I decided to check it out this morning and was able to quickly setup an account at http://friendfeed.com/chuckaikens

Once you using up for FriendFeed you can customize your feed with that which is shared by your friends and family, whether it be family photos, links to common sites or news updates. All of these shared things are automatically imported into your FriendFeed. It basically adds a social aspect to the sires that you currently use and enjoy.  You can see here that I was able to add a number of social sites within minutes of setting up the account.

Friendfeed can currently be used with the Facebook and iGoogle applications as well. And making your FriendFeed public allows you to embed it in your own web page or blog. I was able to connect to Facebook, add my current friends and quickly received a few recommendations for Friends of Friends that I recognized and subscribed to.

Chuck Aikens Friend Feed

FriendFeed is being seen as an alternative, or competitor, to Twitter. This is because there are quiet a few desktop clients that make sharing FriendFeed thoughts as easy as sharing a Twitter Tweet. Popular versions include AlertThingy, BTT, Twhirl and Feedalizr. A big difference, however, is the ability to add comments to imported feeds, which can increase the value of the 140 character Tweet. However, I think I still prefer the direct interface with Twitter and Facebook instead of using a social network aggregrator like FriendFeed.

*Note: You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/chuckaikens.

FriendFeed’s founders also played a part in creating Google’s Gmail program, which may have a bit to do with the positive experiences most users have had with FriendFeed so far. While I may not use FriendFeed as my starting point for social networking, I do think that the site created a good signup experience as seems to be integrated with almost all of the online sites I visit and use frequently.

Category: Research Engine

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