Jan 15th, 2009
Twitter vs. friendfeed
Twitter vs. frendfeed. The definition and debate could rage (or not be cared about perhaps, lol). But taking all that debate out and forcing a simple choice between the two, which is a better tool?
So the exact question was:
“friendfeed vs. twitter Even if it is apples to oranges, in an all or nothing cage match, who wins?”
The answers I got from Libraryland via twitter were:
The answers I got from friendfeed were:
My vote would go to friendfeed btw, though having a few choices for the way the information is visually displayed on the screen would be useful imo. On second thought, twitter,please buy friend feed and stick your designers on that interface. You could then take the folks on the ff team that prevent their version of the fail whale from appearing and put them to good use. 
Sorry twitter, had to tease you a bit there. 
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Now playing: Testify - Rage Against The Machine
and
Passing Me By - The Pharcyde
Is it just me, or are the FF respondents more fair and balanced? Is this conclusive?
I use both for different reasons, so I would be sad to see either go.
I don’t understand why this is presented as an either/or. They are not the same and they serve different purposes.
Twitter provides immediacy but you are blasted with the posts of everyone you are following. If one of the people you are following posts a response to another, you see one side of the conversation unless you start tracking back.
With FriendFeed you have the option of seeing just your posts or your posts + your friends. Comments are under the original post so you see the context. The Rooms feature lets members of the room post on a common theme.
What I (and others do) is link our blog(s) to FriendFeed - our feed and to rooms - then push our FriendFeed posts to Twitter.
If I see a link in Twitter that I find interesting I’ll click on the link and see what was presented in FriendFeed.
I see them as complementary services, not rivals.
“On second thought, twitter,please buy friend feed and stick your designers on that interface.”
NOOOOOOO! NOOO! BAD IDEA!
Unless you can show me some hint of a business plan for Twitter, buying FriendFeed just puts them deeper into the “magic beans will pay for everything, somehow!” category. You know, the one that a few Google services that didn’t have enough ad revenue are now emerging from…into the failure zone.
Admittedly, I wonder about FF as well…but “One company with no revenue buys another company with no revenue, leading to BIG SUCCESS!” really is bubble thinking, maybe a little outdated in an economy of limits.
Otherwise, as Mack says, they’re not the same by any means, particularly for those of us who don’t want to be online, all the time, everywhere.
Ed: Seemed to be the case, but that may be because the text limit on twitter is so much shorter.
Anna: Agreed, but this was a winner take all death match! But I agree that is the case for most folks.
Mack: I agree, but see above, eh? To be honest, I think a lot more folks are “getting”and using twitter now and I’m hoping they can migrate more to what you and I do with the tools.
Walt: Again, I agree. What’s up with this across the board agreement?! I was mostly teasing about the “buying” thing. I was only thinking about this from the perspective of functionality. I might restate “having a few choices for the way the information is visually displayed on the screen would be useful” as “The left align and black and white ff default isn’t quite there yet and twitter has their design down really well. Of course display issues are much easier to resolve when what you are displaying with your tool is much more simple” You point about “bubble” think is well taken, but wasn’t what I meant to put out there seriously.
if i had to pick, i’d say i prefer the simplicity, the elegance, and the mobility of a tweet, thank you very much. but, as ever, it’s not the tools, it’s who you talk to with them.
Friend Feed Rules! You do not like it, go see FAIL WHALE