Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

bloggersblog — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:53:33 -0000

As usual Mathew makes some great points in his post. I think FriendFeed has some unique qualities but it is also endanger of being something people use primarily when Twitter is down. If Twitter totally drops the ball then maybe FriendFeed or another service will benefit but so far Twitter has managed to stay alive enough to continue growing. The biggest Twitter rival is probably Jaiku - if Google ever lets it compete.

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

Cat Laine — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:44:40 -0000

Yeah, I personally think a more apt headline is "Twitter kills self, FriendFeed benefits".

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

mathewi — Sat, 24 May 2008 17:55:03 -0000

I think if FriendFeed added a chat-style feature, it might be able to
take a certain subsection of Twitter's user base away -- but I still
think there are benefits to Twitter as a standalone app, and the
primary one is that it only does one thing. FriendFeed is about
comments on links and other content, but Twitter is just about short
messages and IM-style chat.

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

jerhoyet — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:26:39 -0000

Do you think if FriendFeed had a simpler interface and added a "Twitter-like" feature, it could take a chunk of Twitter's audience?

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

Pyrmont — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:12:36 -0000

Nooo! You fell for his link-bait!

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

calvin pearson — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:46:13 -0000

this is beyond stupid. "kill" twitter? he has GOT to be kidding, right?

if people are fed up with twitter's down time problems, then, obivously, they will move elsewhere. but there's no room here for such infantile thinking. i can't believe i'm even wasting my time commenting on such an intellectually vapid post. but for some reason, people are linking to it and believe it's worthy of debate.

let's dispense with these sorts of verbal jihads. there are more interesting & important topics of discussion

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

MarkDykeman — Sat, 24 May 2008 11:26:16 -0000

I've written my own post on FriendFeed's potential as an aggregator, not just for RSS feeds, but for comments as well (although Disqus is probably better than FriendFeed for that purpose). The thing that would tip Twitter's audience towards using FriendFeed exclusively for microblogging is, of course, Twitter's audience leaving Twitter for FriendFeed. It's a bit of a catch-22 and the key would be having enough of a critical mass abandoning Twitter for enough people thinking that it's time to move.

However: FriendFeed doesn't have the wealth of 3rd party apps that Twitter has (at least not yet). Also, FriendFeed might seem too big and unwieldy compared to the dead simple interface of Twitter, especially for people who don't blog or otherwise use other forms of social media.

Still, I wouldn't rule out a mass exodus of the Twitter team doesn't improve stability - I don't think people will put up with it forever. Some bigger name bloggers, i.e. Scobel and now Steve Rubel, are expanding FriendFeed's usage for conversations. Plus there's the new Rooms functionality, which adds the Chat Room kind of functionality which Twitter sort of mimics, but not very well.

I doubt Twitter will die, especially with the new funding, but they can't afford to rest either.

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

Rob Hyndman — Sat, 24 May 2008 11:04:11 -0000

Who was it at mesh who in a keynote or panel said "The Death of Everything" about the hyperbole of the web? ;)

Re: FriendFeed kill Twitter? Not going to happen

thomashawk — Sat, 24 May 2008 10:35:24 -0000

FriendFeed is very much a communications platform. At least that's how I'm using it. It's replaced Twitter for me 1000%.