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Jun 4, 03:10 pm: FriendFeed: Get in the Room
Thanks to Jonathon D. Colman for getting the nptech room going on FriendFeed. At just under a hundred members, it’s already proving to be a great source of information and conversations.
And, though I’m finding it useful, I’m also finding it time consuming. The jury is still for me with regard to FriendFeed. I love, love, love the room feature. It combines social bookmarking, feed reading, and the casual interactions of twitter into something that works somewhat like a mailing list.
So, if I’m loving that why am still not sure? Mainly because I can’t process the information as quickly or as seamlessly as I can with any of the tools that I regularly use for social bookmarking, feed reading and the casual interactions on twitter.
I use Google Reader much the same way I use my email inbox. To very quickly triage information, making decisions about whether or not I want to come back to the content chunks, how and where I want to share it, how and where I might want to be able to recall it. I treat information differently if I’m tagging it for design reasons, because I might need for my own research, or if it’s something I think other nptechers might be interested in.
I can’t churn through the info like that on FriendFeed.
And, though I can tell icon-easy where the info came from — this helps distinguish between a link someone posted on a service like del.icio.us from a something that they might have written on their own blog — I don’t like that I don’t have ways to sort or organize the information based on its source (I have to jump back to Google Reader for that).
But the conversations. FriendFeed is another place for me talk and to discover interesting people and things and so that has me dipping more than my toe in. I’m up to my waist, in fact, but at some point it’s going to have to not just augment the other services I use but give me a way to replace some of the tasks that I do on them (more organizing features? I might ditch using Google Reader to follow people and only use it follow mainstream news sources and search-based feeds and alters. Ability to add meta-data? I might ditch a social bookmarking service if I can organize my links and find ones that have been tagged in similar ways).
What do you think? Do you think it’s FriendFeed is additive? Is it already replacing some other activity or you? Does it have to?
Laura Whitehead
Hi Marnie (great to finally meet you last week at N2Y3 btw!)
I’m still pondering over the nptech room, been looking in on and off (coding madly on projects at the moment, so hardly any time to participate!), I think the wider we can get conversations the better in some ways, as people come from all different places to find information and begin connections in different ways that suit them; but do wonder sometimes if we’re adding more layers to building communities. Do these ‘rooms’ detract or add? Are they time consuming or not? I suppose that it all depends on how we all get our information, manage it and connect. I know some people prefer tools like Seesmic over Twitter to communicate, so by having rooms on Friendfeed, it widens the opportunity of connectivity with others with shared interests. But how do we keep up with it all? Those in the know of many networks have to keep jumping from one to another, whereas others may just choose one way to connect with others.
I use FriendFeed to keep abreast of lifestreams from connected people, although realise that I’m duplicating many of my feeds as I have been testing out so many different ways to lifestream and connect recently to check out how they could work in a nonprofit context or not. (think some housekeeping is in order soon, so as to stop the duplication!!!). I agree organising features are needed. I like Ning and others to connect on subjects too to create conversation and participation.
Before the ‘rooms’ feature on Friendfeed (and this recent nptech experiment, I never visited the FF site itself, just used either Twhirl or AlertThingy to keep me up to date with friends lifestreams.
Is it addictive? If you have the time, probably yes…although I use life/subject streaming on the side of my work…if there is a handy little app that can sit conveniently at the side of my screen which allows me to work as normal and to dip in and out of conversation, that’s what I personally like (ie – not so much FF rooms)…other people are different to me though! I have found more recently though, that I am now following ‘people’ rather than generic feeds – twitter and others have enabled the ‘person’ side of it all to really come through, so merging the two in this way is a useful! And finally, with lots of orgs already aiming to connect people through their work, how can it be incorporated to drive newbies (or accidental techies!) to that organization (thinking of the Techsoup/Nten Forums here as an example), where they could receive more help and support and also connections with others too, or are things like FF Rooms for those already connected and in the know??
(sorry for long ramble…late here in the UK!)
Rich Reader
It’s addictive, but that’s okay if the people who I want to follow include the sites of contact that matter most, and vice-versa.