The really interesting FriendFeed page to watch

by on May 1, 2008

You’ve seen my ego feed on FriendFeed. It’s the one on the right side of the page on my newly-redesigned blog. You know, that’s where you can find all the crap that +I+ have done on the Internet. All my Google Reader shared items. All my Qik videos. All my Twitters. All my Flickr photos. All my Fast Company videos. And a ton of other stuff all show up on my ego feed.

But that page really isn’t really that important for you to watch.

There’s one FriendFeed page that is FAR more important: the one where you can see YOUR stuff that I’ve liked and commented on. Why is that more important? Well, it’s where you’ll find a lot of new stuff from other people. It is where I signal to you what I think is important to pay attention to (which is quite a database, if you look at it along with my ego feed, since that includes all sorts of cool stuff I’m seeing come through my Google Reader feed).

If you haven’t figured out yet how to see this page for everyone, just look at this URL:

http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/discussion (replace “scobleizer” with the name of your favorite person on FriendFeed).

I thought about embarrassing most of the A listers on FriendFeed, because very few of them actually read that many blogs (I can tell, they rarely comment on, or link to, or FriendFeed with other people’s blogs).

One guy who does it well? Louis Gray. Is it any wonder that Louis is moving up the TechMeme Leaderboard (he’s currently 37, ahead of Wired News)? It’s not to me.

The best way to become a great blogger is demonstrate you listen to other people. FriendFeed is BY FAR the best way to do that.

Are you listening? How many things have YOU liked or commented on this week?

  • Great post, thanks for the heads up on this. I'm sorry to say I don't utilize friendfeed as much as I should. I mostly just scan it for interesting stuff I didn't see on Twitter. I'm still in the mode of 'sharing' things from my feed readers.
  • My first comment this week :-)
    But read a lot. So you mean I have to give more comments or put my Greader also in friendfeed?
  • Great post Robert - thanks for sharing this. I don't get near the number of replies or direct messages you do, I'm sure, but one of the things I like about Twitter over FriendFeed is I can get all DMs and @replies sent to my cell phone so I'm sure I'm getting the messages of those talking to me. Is there a way to do that on FriendFeed?

    Also, when do you post on Twitter vs. posting on FriendFeed? Is there any reason to use Twitter any more (aside from my questions above)?
  • Jesse: Twitter is still more immediate since I use Google Talk. It's more like IM. I like FriendFeed for having conversations about a particular Tweet, though. More and more of my usage is going to FriendFeed.
  • Interesting. If I'm reading the trend right, you're saying that FriendFeed is effectively replacing the notion of trackbacks to create cross blog discussions (or maybe already has) and, to some extent, on-blog comments (such as this very one).

    I've only just began poking around FriendFeed and it seemed to me all content was sourced elsewhere. And then there are the comments on those content notifications, which appeared more like meta-comments at first pass. If the comments are actually responding to content, wouldn't that put a divide between the in-kind responses (e.g. blog comments, twitter reponses, flickr comments, etc) and the FF comments? Is that really a good thing?

    I see the comments on shared Google Reader items, too. I noticed you comment a lot on your own. I find that interesting because there is no inherent way to do that already.

    Anyway, I'm just curious as to the reasoning behind FriendFeed being the place (currently) versus the services themselves that FriendFeed aggregates.

    Thanks!
  • Shane: and it's getting even more confusing thanks to services like Disqus. If I leave a comment over on Dave Winer's blog it shows up on FriendFeed where even more people can comment on my comment itself. The world of media online is changing, and quickly.
  • FriendFeed keeps a rolling count of the number of items that you have commented upon or liked within the past week. A few weeks ago, I set a target for myself to keep my comments/likes above a certain number. In some respects it's a forced way to engage, but at least it helps you to make sure that you ARE engaging.

    But I believe that one of the strongest features of FriendFeed is where your aggregated lifestream (you and your friends) shows you things that your friends liked about their friends. For example, this entry appears in the aggregated feed right now:

    "Allen Stern (friend of Mitchell Tsai) posted a blog post on CenterNetworks"

    I've found that this is a great way to find out about friends of friends, many of whom have interesting content themselves. I've expanded my network in this way. Now let me check out Allen...
  • Robert, the best thing you can do for the other A-listers who haven't yet found how to participate instead of broadcast on FriendFeed and other sites is to lead by example. And you're doing that. It's one thing to be an early adopter who joins services just to "check the box off". It's quite another to be an early adopter who __truly__ adopts a service and does everything they can to make it work for them. It's all about participation... which I noted in my follow-on to your post here:

    Participate. Participate. Participate. Repeat.
    http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/05/participa...

    We'll keep on commenting and liking where it makes sense, and I know you will as well.
  • I wish that my delicious links didn't show up on the /discussion page - I don't think my annotations belong in there as "comments"

    Love the re-design by the way. It must be Spring!
  • "The best way to become a great blogger is demonstrate you listen to other people. FriendFeed is BY FAR the best way to do that."

    Yes! True. FriendFeed is the best way.

    "Are you listening? How many things have YOU liked or commented on this week?"

    Yes, sir. I am going to work on it.
  • Robert, FriendFeed is nice, but I can tell you for me, it wouldn't accurately reflect my online participation. For one thing. I read lots of blogs and share them through our SearchCap newsletter. FriendFeed doesn't reflect this -- yet there's a world outside Google Reader. I do lots of discussion on Sphinn but FriendFeed has yet to add that to their supported services. In short, I'd be wary of using that as a benchmark for participation studies (though I do love the service).
  • Robert is a true leader because he not only leads by example, which yes (I believe) is the most powerful force and contributes to his great success, but he very very gently (some others use a sledghammer) shows how some other successful individuals but "so-called leaders" (my, not his term) are lacking in terms of similarly optimizing that success.

    When I ran for Governor of Maine, I wrote an article on my views of leadership: http://www.magic-city-news.com/Alex_Hammer_88/E..., in part mentioning some famous sports heroes (Joe Montana, Michael Jordan and others) and how they attained success through famously bringing out the best (in different ways, including motivating) their teammates and those with whom they are involved. Life is participatory. Success is participatory. Scoble gets that in a massive way. He knows that the more that he helps others to succeed -- the more that there is a participatory give and take and exchange - the more that he will succeed as well.

    And it's paying off in spades.
  • A super article and a timely reminder. Like a good conversation in a bar, blogging is a two way thing.
  • Danny: >FriendFeed doesn’t reflect this — yet there’s a world outside Google Reader.

    Yup, I know. I wish FriendFeed hooked up to even more stuff than it does (and what it does is already pretty damn cool).

    Sphinn? Very popular, but a little island that I wish I could read in Google Reader. I hate partial text feeds because it really interrupts my reading experience. But I understand why you do it and because you have thousands of loyal community members it works for you. It's one reason why you're underrepresented in FriendFeed, though, which means you're probably missing some growth opportunities.
  • francinehardaway
    My partner, Ed, showed me how he watches my Social Media acitivies on addictomatic. http://addictomatic.com/topic/francine+hardaway
    You can search by topic there, too.

    And I agree about reading other blogs.
  • jenniferstavros
    Indeed. Some very valid points. While I do read quite a bit, I haven't been commenting as much as I'd like to. Time to really start pushing out some extra time and giving those people the comments they deserve.
    Ty Friendfeed for mainstreaming some efficiency to the social networking cycle.
  • Ahhh, if only there was a way to aggregate all of our own comments and shares while at the same time maintaining the original conversation in one place. Too many ways to extend the conversation, not enough ways to collect it.
  • jeroendemiranda
    great tip! I have just added a new item to my blog 'Friendfeed (My comments and likes) to my blogrol in the sidebar.
blog comments powered by Disqus