There is no need to refresh the page, it will update automatically. Just leave the page open and watch the show.

If you want to participate you can by joining the room on Friendfeed for this post or simply comment below.

FriendFeed is leading the way in many areas. Their API is really, really well done. The stuff they do real time is great. The fact that they have groups, allow for aggregation, photos, different types of media, and are generally built ontop of a phenominal platform are among the ways that they excel.

I respect the work that FriendFeed has done. There is no doubt that they have some of the most brilliant minds on staff and that they are doing really, really great work. I was having this same discussion with Rob Sandie and I described FriendFeed as a brilliant, genius-level scientist. Except, instead of that scientist working hard to cure cancer – they are working on making better ice cubes. Surely they are doing good and interesting work – but no one really needs better ice cubes.

So who uses FriendFeed? They have a ton of users. I have an account. But who really uses it? Robert Scoble, who is a self-proclaimed FriendFeed addict, starts discussions on the service and gets an incredible amount of feedback. That’s all well and good – for Robert. But what about the rest of us?

On FriendFeed I have 311 followers. Not a lot by today’s social-juggernaut standards – however, 311 people is a lot of people. Think of the room you’re in right now being filled with 311 people. If you stood up in that over crowded room and asked a question you’d probably get at least a few people to answer you. Especially those close to you.

Well, I did that very thing – nearly a month ago – on FriendFeed and got zero replies. I do polls on Twitter (where I have just over 1,700 followers) all the time and I get a bunch of replies. Sure, 1,700 is much more than 311. But out of 311 not a single response?

So my question is: Does anyone really use FriendFeed? If so, how?

“Twitter killed a lot of blogs, and I’m beginning to think that it’s killed even more comments. I love Twitter, but I do miss the old days of the blogosphere, back when blogs where as common as opinions (I was traversing my archives earlier; it was like visiting a graveyard, with URLs for headstones). Back when even a half-assed entry would garner comments from near and far, and people would link to each other and the sense of community was in-between people and their writing, rather than in-between 140-character quips.

Those days are gone, and a new batch have arrived, where if I write that I’m eating a strawberry pie on Facebook, it’ll get more replies than if I dig up a super-rare interview with George Lucas and write about it on my blog… What’s a man to do?”

Michael and I share these feelings. I really do miss the old days of blogging. I do like Twitter and Facebook, but it doesn’t distract me from reading and participating on blogs. Although it seems to do just that to the majority of ‘the blogosphere’.

A few examples of this in action, if I may.

The other day I wrote a link about Gmail labels and asked a question at the end of the post about how people currently use labels. That question got zero replies. Back when I was one of the authors of the now defunct TheUberGeeks.net that question could have garnered 10-20 replies before the sun set. Even here on my personal blog I’d get a few replies to a question like that – back in the old days. After a day or so of not getting any replies I Twittered a link to the post. That managed to get three replies. As irony would have it, Michael was the very first person to respond.

Here is another example. And one that fits in well with Michael’s comment about strawberries and Facebook. Yesterday I was eating a banana. So I Twittered nothing other than the word banana. I got at least 8 replies on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and other services. Wow. Fruit is still popular.

Well Michael, my friend, the old days of blogging are long gone. They will more than likely never return. As you say you may be able to adapt and overcome – but I like to think that we’ll just have to live with it like old men that wish for ‘the old days’ again.

FriendFeed, of which I’m a member, recently launched an iPhone-friendly version of their site.  Notably, however, they’ve done it in such a way that I much prefer to some of the ways other sites have done it.  They detect the iPhone’s mobile browser and automatically format it for you, rather than requiring you to remember the URL of the iPhone-friendly site.

Flickr, on the other hand, has a mobile Website that – while it works fairly well on the iPhone (though it isn’t built for it) – is not interchangeable with the normal Website.  What I mean to say is, if someone links me to a Flickr photo on my iPhone either via Twitter, FriendFeed, or even through an SMS message – I’m forced to be taken to the full-fledged, slow-loading Website without so much as the choice of loading the mobile version.  At least with Twitter I’m able to simply prepend the URL with m.*, which switches the site into “mobile mode”, and see the same content.  Flickr’s URLs for their mobile site aren’t hackable.

FriendFeed does have hackable URLs ((Just insert /iphone/ into any URL.)). Combine the hackability of their URLs with the detection of the iPhone and you’ve got nearly a perfect solution for iPhone users.

Side note: I love the FriendFeed looks nearly the same on my iPhone as it does on my personal computer.  FriendFeed’s design lends itself to this because of its simplicity, lightness, and straight-forward “the content is the design” approach.

Source: FriendFeed iPhone interface.
Via: TechCrunch: FriendFeed Finally Gets iPhone Friendly ((I don’t like the use of the word finally in this title.)).

I’m now using this to filter out Twitter messages, since I don’t need to see those messages twice.  Something that is undocumented is that this preference also trickles down to the API level.  Meaning, of course, that Twhirl now also filters out Twitter messages from my friends on FriendFeed.

You can watch the video tutorial, by Ross one of the FriendFeed summer interns, to show you exactly how to do this.  I’m really, really impressed with the way that FriendFeed team is building their product.

Source: Ross’s FriendFeed Tutorial #1: Using FriendFeed’s “Hide” features.

However, there are some Twitter accounts that I’d like to follow, but not “follow”.  Take for instance the Twitter account for a local newspaper in my area The Times Tribune (timestribune on Twitter).  The Times Tribune’s web site sucks, since it doesn’t even have RSS feeds to subscribe to, yet they manage to syndicate their news to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. Go figure.

Anyway, long story short.  I don’t follow them on Twitter.  I created an “imaginary friend” on FriendFeed ((Unfortunately, and I’m not sure why, FriendFeed does not allow me to share my imaginary friends with you. I’m hoping that in the future FriendFeed enables the sharing of one’s imaginary friends)) using their Twitter account and the RSS feed for their group on Flickr.  Now I get news updates delivered to me through Twhirl.

Just incase I miss something on Twhirl (since I don’t watch it 24/7), I’ve also subscribed to the feed that FriendFeed generates for this imaginary friend.

I told you it was a simple tip.