Social networks
FriendFeed: aggregation vs. fragmentation
I hesitate to jump back into the whole FriendFeed debate, given the unpleasantness on the weekend involving Duncan Riley and Louis Gray, but FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit wrote something about the purpose of the social aggregation service that I thought was worth commenting on. I think he has put his finger on an important reason why some people don’t like FriendFeed, or at least don’t like it as much as other “life-streaming” aggregators such as SocialThing.com or Correlate.us.
In a nutshell, what Muhammad Saleem and others have criticized about FriendFeed is the fact that when someone “likes” or comments on an item that streams into their feed from you — whether it’s a Twitter post or a Flickr photo or a StumbleUpon link — the comment and the fact that you like it only appear on the FriendFeed site, not on whatever place the content originated from. In other words, FriendFeed is more like another social network rather than a simple aggregator. That seems to be a deal breaker for many people — although others see it as a benefit.
In his post, Paul uses the analogy of going to a movie and then wanting to discuss it afterwards. Do you want to talk about it with strangers? Your family? Your friends? Other film fans? The point behind FriendFeed, he says, is to have a group of friends — and friends of friends — who you can share items with and share comments with, rather than doing it through a wide-open site. In other words, unified aggregation of everything isn’t always good. I think that’s a fair point.
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At the same time, half of the sites that FriendFeed aggregates are sites that are open to the public to some extent (ie Twitter). These items are still available for discussion on all the services that FF aggregates.
That's a good point, Corvida -- although I think the criticism some
have is that those comments and the ones on FriendFeed are separate
from each other, where it might be better to unite them.
On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Disqus
as a reader, i don't have access to these guys. i wish you had actually interviewed the people at friendfeed rather than reprint what these blowhards have to say. i can't speak for other readers but i prfer gettingthe straight scoop, not the derivative stuff. they're just being lazy, talking about people talking about other people talking. ad infinitum
Well in that case I definitely can and have complained about the fragmentation too!
http://corvida.ilumine.net/social-aggregators-g...
Thanks, Corvida -- meant to mention your post.
I think he has an interesting point - but for most sites the problem isn't a discussion involving millions. If you have a huge site and an abundance of conversation well then perhaps fragmentation is good or at least not bad. On the other hand if you are like most sites and struggle to get a converstation started the analogy would be, wouldn't you rather have conversation be you in a forum with a few people wandering in or you talking to one guy and another guy off in some cul de sac talking to himself unless you remember to head over there. Conversation begets conversation, so in a low talk situation, you want to make sure that as much of it is in one place as possible. At least how I see it. :)
That's a good point, Felix.
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Disqus