Re: Facebook's FriendFeed coup

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Gordon Peterson <gep2 () terabites com>
Date: August 16, 2009 2:50:45 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Facebook's FriendFeed coup

The serious design flaw of most all of these social networking sites  
is that they embody the design concept that all of your "friends"  
ought to know about everything you do online, and know about everyone  
else who you talk with online.

I believe that a lot of people try to keep their personal, social,  
professional, political, and other circles of friends rather more  
distinct and separate than that.

One of the reasons I like Snapfish for photo sharing is because you  
can share your specific photo albums with specific and appropriate  
friends, and your other "friends" can't just wander in and leaf  
through all the others at their whim.

Yahoogroups, by the same token, doesn't tell other people the list of  
all the Yahoogroups you subscribe to.  You can keep your various  
interests separate. (And some companies, like the heavily-disliked  
Grouply, presume that they can deny their subscribers that discretion).

Just today I had to decline to join a friend's Facebook group that I  
otherwise might have enjoyed joining, for that same reason.

I don't think I'll be signing up for either FriendFeed or Facebook  
Connect...! I have some "friends" that I don't especially WANT to have  
meet some specific other "friends"...!

> Facebook's purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform,  
> is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand  
> FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown  
> to everybody else. It's a sleek application that acts as a  
> clearinghouse for all of your social-media activities. Post  
> something to Flickr? That will show up on your FriendFeed page. Digg  
> something? FriendFeed will know. Post to Twitter from your phone?  
> FriendFeed will syndicate your tweets. Once you initially tell it  
> where to look, it will collect everything and tell it to the world.
> The goal is to make automatic that which is all too annoying to do  
> manually. If I like an article enough to Digg it, why should I then  
> have to tell all my friends via Facebook or Twitter, as well? The  
> social-media landscape has become disparate enough -- so many start- 
> ups controlling so many different pieces of our lives -- that we  
> need a central place that will organize all of our actions for us.  
> That place is FriendFeed.
> Facebook has recently shown that it, too, wants to be that place.  
> For all of its genius in harnessing the collective procrastination  
> of an entire planet, Facebook has usually asked you to come to it.  
> For example, want to post photos on Flickr but not Facebook? Good  
> luck telling your Facebook friends about it. In the past, while  
> Facebook was building an audience, this walled garden helped it  
> build its audience. If all your friends were on Facebook, then why  
> not post your pictures there? After all, the point of digital  
> photography in 2009 is to relive memories with the very group of  
> people that lived through them in the first place. That group is  
> most likely found on Facebook.
> But now Facebook's user base is big enough for it to start looking  
> out. There's a Twitter application that synchronizes your tweets  
> with your Facebook status message. And then there's Facebook  
> Connect, the company's convoluted and potentially brilliant attempt  
> to make Facebook the official login for the rest of the Internet.  
> Sites that support Facebook Connect -- about 15,000 and growing --  
> let users log in using their Facebook credentials in order to do  
> things such as leave comments on articles and blog posts. That  
> activity is then pumped back into the author's Facebook profile,  
> which then promotes the site where the comment was left. Everybody  
> wins -- especially Facebook, which gets more content and more of an  
> off-site footprint.
> So here's a theory: FriendFeed is going to become the companion to  
> Facebook Connect; Facebook Connect pipes Facebook out to other  
> sites, while FriendFeed's technology pipes other sites in. <snip>
> ..
> That leaves two mega-conglomerates that will compete to be the  
> portal of everything we do on the Internet. Google has long tried to  
> get into the social game, and Facebook surely wouldn't mind  
> expanding into some of Google's territory. (Real-time search is the  
> likely entry point.) It's as classic an American struggle as Pepsi  
> vs. Coke. Two companies, one market. Regardless of which side you  
> choose, I'm sure Facebook will be happy to air your thoughts on the  
> matter. Even if you write them on Blogspot, Google's blogging  
> network. After all, that's why Facebook bought FriendFeed. So it  
> could own you.


--

Gordon Peterson II
http://personal.terabites.com
1977-2007:  Thirty year anniversary of local area networking




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