55 Reasons Why Friendfeed Is Going Mainstream

I’ve read a few articles explaining why Friendfeed will never go mainstream. Well, I think it will because…

1. Friendfeeders are sharing more than just tech.
2. It’s addictive.
3. Steve Rubel is thinking of changing his business card URL to Friendfeed.com/steverubel.
4. Robert Scoble is starting to use slang.
5. You just might find your mom on Friendfeed.
6. Here’s another Friendfeed List (that’s not techie!).
7. FF enthusiasts are starting to make gang signs.
8. Here, your followers actually participate.
9. People share inspiring stories.
10. Jake has to remove subscriptions to get to the techie stuff.
11. FFers are good people.
12. People just like to like stuff.
13. Popular services on Friendfeed get a lot of attention.
14. You get to read real news story about Bennigan’s shutting doors without notice.
15. Late adopters are already here.
16. People like Mona are great connectors.
17. There is a Fans page on Facebook dedicated to Friendfeed.
18. Pink is the new black.
19. Wearing a helmet can save your life.
20. Stories like Christian the Lion make you cry.
21. People enjoy sharing stories.
22. You just ate some ho-made soup.
23. Three year olds kick ask.
24. Popular microblogging services are added to FF soon after they launch.
25. Writing happy birthday on your friend’s Facebook wall isn’t as much fun as posting it on FF.
26. Doodling on signs is fun.
27. You find genius products like this here.
28. You LOL’d at the zombie kid.
29. FAILpics are funny.
30. Scaring your friends is fun.
31. You get to learn about pork’s dirty secret.
32. You get to see lettuce dork challenge all the bacon dorks.
33. You discover AT AT scrollers. What? Star Wars is mainstream. Don’t believe me? Check IMDB.
34. You can show a token of friendship, with a side of bacon.
35. You can explore 92 More Must See Creative Photographs.
36. Your friends understand the latest bacon meme.
37. You want to ride the mowercycle.
38. You want to eat a space invader cupcakes.
39. You like pictures of corn fields.
40. Bananas are funny.
41. You saw the Best cat video ever on FF.
42. You saw the Best street sign intersection ever on FF.
43. You saw weird pictures of the Droste Effect on FF.
44. You saw pictures and had a discussion about places of interest.
45. Everyone loves babies.
46. People like to share book recommendations.
47. The shoplifting seagull is hilarious.
48. Tad has friends.
49. You LOL’d at Neverending story, the early years.
50. Mango is the new bacon.
51. People here are more willing to share stuff about themselves.
52. We like fishies with funny facial expressions.
53. Dolphins make you happy.
54. The quick brown DOGS jump over the fence.
55. You are reading this.

List of FFers I Appreciate and Recommend

In no particular order, this list represents only a small fraction of the Friendfeed community who deserves to be mentioned for adding all kinds of value to our FF experience. I highly recommend subscribing to all the people below. Here’s to you, good people of FF for making it a better place for us all!

http://friendfeed.com/sourpatchkid ::Kristen::
http://friendfeed.com/jeffisageek (jeff)isageek
http://friendfeed.com/akiva Akiva Moskovitz
http://friendfeed.com/a7an Alan Le
http://friendfeed.com/ajbatac AJ Batac
http://friendfeed.com/atul Atul Arora
http://friendfeed.com/allenstern Allen Stern
http://friendfeed.com/annaharo Anna Haro
http://friendfeed.com/bgolub Benjamin Golub
http://friendfeed.com/infinitelymeta Brian Daniel Eisenberg
http://friendfeed.com/bwana Bwana McCall
http://friendfeed.com/ultrasur1 Cee Bee
http://friendfeed.com/chrisbaskind Chris Baskind
http://friendfeed.com/charris1980 Chris Harris
http://friendfeed.com/corieallison Corie Allison
http://friendfeed.com/czarphanguye Czar D.J. Peterman
http://friendfeed.com/dobata Dobromir Hadzhiev
http://friendfeed.com/duncanriley Duncan Riley
http://friendfeed.com/furry edythe
http://friendfeed.com/nybble felix
http://friendfeed.com/consiliera Gaby Benkwitz
http://friendfeed.com/ha3rvey Harvey Simmons
http://friendfeed.com/bhc3 Hutch Carpenter
http://friendfeed.com/eng1ne J. Phil
http://friendfeed.com/castillo JA Castillo
http://friendfeed.com/jonathon Jonathon
http://friendfeed.com/justinkorn Justin Korn
http://friendfeed.com/l0ckergn0me l0ckergn0me
http://friendfeed.com/bluecockatoo Lindsay Donaghe
http://friendfeed.com/loucypher LouCypher
http://friendfeed.com/louisgray Louis Gray
http://friendfeed.com/aureliusmaximus Marco
http://friendfeed.com/bbluesman Mark Forman
http://friendfeed.com/krynsky Mark Krynsky
http://friendfeed.com/itafroma Mark Trapp
http://friendfeed.com/mati Mathew A. Koeneker
http://friendfeed.com/mgbaron Matt Baron
http://friendfeed.com/melmcbride melmcbride
http://friendfeed.com/parislemon MG Siegler
http://friendfeed.com/michaeltwofish Michael C. Harris
http://friendfeed.com/girl2fall4 Michelle Miller
http://friendfeed.com/joffi Michael W. May
http://friendfeed.com/glemak mike “glemak” dunn
http://friendfeed.com/fruchter Mike Fruchter
http://friendfeed.com/mitchelltsai Mitchell Tsai
http://friendfeed.com/monasfeed Mona N
http://friendfeed.com/mortonfox Morton Fox
http://friendfeed.com/rahsheen Rahsheen Porter
http://friendfeed.com/robdiana Rob Diana
http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer Robert Scoble
http://friendfeed.com/seidman Robert Seidman
http://friendfeed.com/sarahintampa Sarah Perez
http://friendfeed.com/droffset sergiooo (droffset)
http://friendfeed.com/sthayden Stefan Hayden
http://friendfeed.com/steveisaacs Steve Isaacs
http://friendfeed.com/steverubel Steve Rubel
http://friendfeed.com/shey Shey
http://friendfeed.com/susanbeebe Susan Beebe
http://friendfeed.com/tad Tad Donaghe
http://friendfeed.com/tamar Tamar Weinberg
http://friendfeed.com/thomashawk Thomas Hawk
http://friendfeed.com/jokeyxero xero
http://friendfeed.com/vdegeorge Vince DeGeorge
http://friendfeed.com/vincent Vincent X
http://friendfeed.com/yuvipanda Yuvi
http://friendfeed.com/yolanda Yolanda

Lively vs. Second Life, The Virtual Arms Race Is On

Lively, dubbed Google’s Second Life, launched today. I checked it out. Here are my thoughts on Lively vs. Second Life.

Photo: CNET

Accessibility

Lively is a browser plugin. Quick, simple install. Load up your web browser (FF or IE), goto Lively.com, login with your Google account (everyone has one of these by now), and you’re in a virtual room in no time. Too bad it’s only available on Windows.

Second Life is a desktop app available on more platforms (Win, Mac, Linux). First, you have to sign up for an SL account which requires credit card validation. After a more painful 35-73MB download, the client only works on more mid to high end computers with high speed internet because the client is very performance heavy. If you’ve made it this far, congrats because most people don’t. For the average user, there are just way too many doors to open.

Winner: Lively

Usability

When I first got into Lively, I was annoyed that the UI didn’t work like Second Life. In Lively, the avatar doesn’t walk around smoothly. When you double click somewhere, your avatar teleports to that location. Every object you click on has different properties and functions you can do to them (inconsistency). There are dozens of icons all over the screen, and I have to hover over each one of them to figure out what they do (poor visibility).

Linden Lab has spent a lot of time perfecting how to move your avatar/objects and navigate the environment. The use of the ALT + mouse for panning, dragging and dropping for objects, scroll wheel for zooming, right click for pie menu, and keyboard arrow key for maneuvering your avatar are all examples of great natural mapping.

Winner: Second Life

Performance

Obviously, Second Life is going to blow Lively out of the water in graphics and such, especially with the new Windlight viewer. However, how many users are Linden Lab losing because SL wasn’t built for basic computers with integrated graphic cards? Lively may not be that pretty, but it can probably run on almost every computer. Great graphics do not make a virtual world good; it’s the social interactions and online media that will make it immersive and addicting.

Winner: Second Life

Lighthouse in Second Life. Flickr / Felony Fabre

Final Thoughts

Google is entering the virtual world space at a very interesting time. Recently, VWs have been popping up out of the woodwork. Whether you believe it’s a marketing ploy or if it truly helps your brand, virtual worlds are hot right now, and everyone and their mother is building one. The one thing they don’t have is Google’s vast user base and resources…

The Virtual Arms Race Is On

What makes virtual worlds so popular? It’s the user generated content (UGC). Millions of L$ (Lindens) are exchanged hands in Second Life every day between buyers and content creators. Content = Money. In 2008/2009, I predict there will be a rush to see who can get the most UGC for virtual worlds, since this is where the future profits will be. There will be a virtual arms race to see who can warehouse the best and the largest quantity of 3D content that can be exported to different virtual worlds. If Google plays its cards right, it could dominate this space just like it did with search and online video.

“He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.” -George Orwell

Related articles on Lively:

http://pixelsebi.com/2008-07-09/the-impact-of-lively-and-the-recent-proceedings-in-opensim-interoperability/
http://mashable.com/2008/07/08/google-lively/
http://www.centernetworks.com/google-lively-social-world-creator
http://anzman.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-gets-another-life-lively-is-here.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/08/google-launches-virtual-world-called-lively/
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9984909-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/google-unveils.html
http://blogs.computerworld.com/why_googles_lively_is_great_for_telecommuters

Add Profiles to Friendfeed

Friendfeed doesn’t have user profiles, yet. The second best thing to do? Use this Greasemonkey script to see people’s Twitter bio on their FF user page. You can download it from userscripts.org. Also check out my other Friendfeed GM scripts, including better recommended and better subscribed to me.

Download script

Identi.ca, Not Perfect, But Good Enough

This is a response to everyone complaining about identi.ca being yet another microblogging service.

In today’s world, time is a luxury you don’t have. Release your product too early, it’s featureless or users don’t understand it, they won’t come back. Release too late, and someone else has surely beat you to the punch. Being a web developer, I understand that it’s okay to release something that is not perfect. You want to release something that is just good enough. Good enough to give users a reason to join and come back. You want to be agile, transparent, and open. Let the users know when the next release is and what to expect. Iterate quickly, fixing those bugs and adding more key features as you build up your core user base. Speed is key. That is the ingenuity of Web 2.0.

Identi.ca is not perfect, but it’s good enough. Now is the perfect time to release, when Twitter is failing, and people are looking for refuge. Also, it’s open source, which means the best and the brightest software engineers in the world will have a chance at creating a scalable, decentralized Twitter clone. Even on Day 0, so much happened. There was an issue with RSS that people pointed out when importing to other services like Friendfeed, and evan fixed it within an hour. There were no Replies, so people took it onto themselves to write a Greasemonkey script and a Yahoo Pipe. Many people already started looking at the code.

Much work is needed to be done, but I, for one, have high hopes for Identi.ca.

Follow me on http://identi.ca/detect and http://friendfeed.com/bitfaker.

What do you think? Join the conversation in the identi.ca Friendfeed room.

Other related articles:

http://www.winextra.com/2008/07/03/omg-look-out-everyone-its-a-twitter-clone-omg/
http://www.sarahintampa.com/sarah/2008/07/02/identica-early-adopter-tips.html
http://mashable.com/2008/07/02/identica/
http://www.inquisitr.com/1424/could-identica-be-a-fail-whale-killer/
http://shegeeks.net/identica-apps-why-it-could-blow-twitter-away/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/indentica_federated_twitter.php
http://www.bwana.org/2008/07/02/an-open-sourced-twitter-emerges-identica/

Fail Whale Fail