Scribkin - Latest Comments in Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:02:10 -0000

I re-read your original comment in the context of applying specifically to that one statement.. it makes more sense now.

Thanks for your input.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Lucretia M Pruitt — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:19:08 -0000

"They are essentially telling us, yeah well I don’t like FriendFeed, but I’m still going to use it for PR until my primary publicity vehicle stops working (in this case Twitter).

I believe this is wrong."

That last part? That's the opposite of right. I read what you wrote. I disagree with your judgment call.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:55:49 -0000

If you are saying what I think, which is that FriendFeed should notify you somehow of new replies on old conversations, I'm right there with you!

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

chrisofspades — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:46:21 -0000

That would be cool. Disqus just empowers my laziness. Whenever I leave a comment somewhere - which is rare - I always forget to check back for replies. I even forget where I've commented at. Disqus takes care of these things for me.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:15:38 -0000

I do remember the Loic issue.

Hmm.. I will grudgingly accept that you have a good argument for a placeholder. However, as you said, that doesn't mean FriendFeed should put someone like Steve on their recommended list (because by all accounts he is not active).

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:13:03 -0000

I generally feel that using friendfeed to comment is easier than using Disqus.. not by much.. but yeah, using Disqus for friendfeed comments would introduce a level of complexity and load on an additional system.

However, there are rumors that Disqus is working with FriendFeed to bring the two services together in some way.. perhaps allowing two-way publishing on syndicated articles.

Now that would be very cool.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:04:58 -0000

In a way, this is the same behavior Steve is exhibiting, but in reverse.. he uses Twitter exclusively.

So let me ask you: do you have a Twitter login that you ignore? If so, you could be described as a "twitter poser"..

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:02:30 -0000

Excellent. Even if you weren't, I wouldn't hold it against you.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:01:32 -0000

Not to ego stroke too much, Mike, but this article for better or worse is now my third-most popular in terms of share and second-most in terms of FriendFeed discussion. It has drawn a lot of eyes to my site and has even gotten Steve Gillmore to take a minute out and comment, which he didn't have to do.

So you tell me, was it worth it?

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Mike — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:35:16 -0000

Does it really matter enough to waste this much time and energy?

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

nikan — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:35:27 -0000

My two pennies: most of the web 2 addicts HAVE to sign up to various services and NOT use them simply because they have to maintain their online identity (or brand, or microbrand) intact.
Don't know if you followed the story about how someone pretended to be Loic Le Meur in plurk and posting things that turned insulting for Loic? Now, Loic does not use plurk, but he had to claim back his identity.
If there is something to be annoyed about, is the friendfeed recommendation. Maybe they need a more clever algorithm.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Michael McGimpsey — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:46:25 -0000

I am an active member at FriendFeed and Twitter. No posing here!

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

chrisofspades — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:11:15 -0000

Somewhat unrelated, but as I was formulating a response to this post something else occurred to me: FriendFeed should forgo its commenting system and just implement Disqus. In fact, everyone should just use Disqus for comments. Maybe I should Twitter this. Or FriendFeed it. Or tumblr it. Heh.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:04:16 -0000

Wow, I completely forgot about twitterfeed. I set up a twitterfeed for myself just now, for my FF entries to be reposted on Twitter. Thanks!

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

glemak — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:24:44 -0000

if you use http://twitterfeed.com/ steve and input your friendfeed atom feed it'll post your ff entries into twitter - i use this along w/ some other things dave slusher took the time to research and point out to use friendfeed fulltime but still interact w/ my non-friendfeed followers who are back on twitter - best of both worlds but able to focus more on friendfeed where the conversation is much richer imho...

http://www.evilgeniuschroni...

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:47:59 -0000

Three reasons why I didn't:
1) I wasn't including everyone who has ever signed on to FriendFeed and then never re-visited
2) I liked the word 'poser' as it makes this article more emotionally charged
3) I think using friendfeed as a way of simply aggregating what you do on other places on the internets is just fine.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:28:35 -0000

Agreed with these points, Lynne. I maybe had too many different goals when I wrote this post, and different people are taking what they want out of it.. and actually, I'm OK with that. But really, I just wanted to foster some discussion, maybe poke the FriendFeed devs a bit for having (as I see it) a flawed 'suggested user' page, and poke some fun at Steve Gillmor, who seems to have taken it that way.

Then again, maybe I will be roasted alive on his show one day, in which case, we'll be even. Haha.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:25:45 -0000

Are you tired of MY attacks on 'people' or on negativity surrounding FriendFeed and Twitter in general? Because if it is the former, let me ask you.. how many articles have I written that are negative about FriendFeed OR Twitter?

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:23:41 -0000

Where in my article did I say there is a right way to use FriendFeed? All I said is that I think that, in my example, influential people (whom I picked on one in particular) who just use FriendFeed as a vehicle to increase their personal brand without having any interest in the service for the community, are not right.

And, Steve himself posted and said although he does not contribute, he does pay attention to FriendFeed, so he's no longer a really good example.

That leaves my final argument -- that FriendFeed should not be suggesting people who are not contributing to new FriendFeed users as examples as really the only one standing.

Thanks for your comment.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Lynne d Johnson — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:44:12 -0000

I think it's an excellent post and worthy of discussion. People use Pownce, Jaiku, Plaxo Pulse, and other services similar. They set it up and then walk away. I call it parking and creating lifestreams, as you've already stated. And as others have pointed out, there is definitely an issue with porting the activity that happens back into other services. Sure, there are now ways to have comments from blog posts pulled back in with plugins like on Wordpress, but other advances haven't happened yet.

The thing that makes Twitter work for everyone, whether we're fed up with the way it doesn't always work or not, is that conversation is simple. Especially back-and-forth conversation. Not to say it isn't simple on FriendFeed, if you're using FriendFeed solely, I just think that most people have not trained themselves to use FriendFeed as their main communications tool yet. I set up two things recently to do that. I've added tabs to FriendFeed so that it's my start page and I've also started using feedalizr, which lets me use a few of my other services directly. See my blog post on this for more info.

Friendfeed is still too early adopter, IMHO, to get everyone there really interacting.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Lucretia M Pruitt — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:43:38 -0000

Um. Okay, I understand the annoyance... but honestly? There's no "right way" to use a service. By this logic, those who are using Twitter to do anything other than alert the world to "what they are doing" are poseurs.

Seriously... I see people using FF different ways. There's no rule that says "and if you don't participate fully over here, then you can't have your feeds here for others to see."

Can we get rid of the "right way" judgment call? It's accurate to say that someone uses the service in a a way that you find frustrating - but there's nothing that requires someone to act in any certain way on the service.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

jokeyxero — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:38:56 -0000

How about calling them the FriendFeed Deaf instead of Posers, much less critical that way. I have no problem with those who use FF only as a single point of aggregation for their data outputs. They're not really "FriendFeeders" so much as "RSS Producers" at that point. I think that data collection and aggregation part is what FF is all about, it just so happens it has a rich community inside it as well. People continue to compare it to Facebook and Twitter and every other social service, but it is really none of those things. It is its own entity with its own purpose and set of tools, yeah it allows interaction internally, but it's just not the same thing.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Scobleizer — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:54:01 -0000

I'm getting tired of all the attacks on people. How about uplifting those who ARE doing FriendFeed right?

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Phil Glockner — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:42:40 -0000

Excellent! From the mouth of a master, that is high praise indeed! Thanks.

Re: Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

StevenHodson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:51:05 -0000

I thought you did a hellva good job with the post - worthy of a "Get your crank on" button :)