FriendFeed Offers Twitter A Chance to Play Lifestream

When FriendFeed first gained significant traction early this spring, coming at the same time as Twitter was struggling with uptime issues and a reduced feature set, bloggers were abuzz with the idea that FriendFeed could replace Twitter outright. The excitement around the social aggregation site at times was so white hot, it was thought the team would soon render popular tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader unnecessary. Rather than eliminate other services in the ecosystem, FriendFeed has instead, over the last several months, added support for many more services, and introduced upgrades that have made it even further integrated with those same sites, Facebook and Twitter.

Today, FriendFeed introduced a set of features that lets users update Twitter with all their FriendFeed activity, based on their own preferences - be it with native FriendFeed entries, or shares from popular sites, be they Disqus, Last.fm, YouTube, Flickr and many more.

The result essentially turns the lifestreaming functionality on its head. Rather than just have Twitter play a major role in inputting entries in user's feeds, FriendFeed now gives Twitter the chance to do more than operate as a microblogging tool, taking your personal FriendFeed, and mirroring it back Twitter's direction.


I've set up a number of services on FriendFeed to reflect back to Twitter.
Despite having served as one of the more vocal proponents of FriendFeed, I don't see that everything I do on the site needs to fill my Twitter stream. I won't be adding my FriendFeed comments to Twitter, nor will I be adding the vast majority of my social activity around the Web, including Google Reader shares, Delicious bookmarks, or comments, be they on FriendFeed, Disqus or BackType. After a certain point, the ensuing waterfall of updates would be certain to leave my in box full of Qwitter notifications.


A native post I made to FriendFeed was bounced to Twitter as well.
What I will be doing is notifying Twitter on native FriendFeed shared items, including all the iPhone pictures I take of the twins and send in via e-mail, as well as new blog posts, SmugMug shares and YouTube postings. This will effectively eliminate my need to use TinyURL for new blog posts, and probably will erode my use of Posty, TweetDeck or other Twitter applications. But as the integration is with Twitter only, Identi.ca and other microblogging services don't get any of the love.

Will Twitter's new role as a mainstream erode FriendFeed's differentiation? I don't believe so. The site is still all about following friends' feeds, and not just aggregating your updates. It's also become a strong platform for discussion and engagement. As links back to FriendFeed begin to increasingly populate Twitter, it should drive even more traffic their way, as both services aid one another, padding their lead in their respective markets.

Qwitter: Bringing Neurosis To Your Twitter Stream

By Leslie Poston of Uptown Uncorked (Twitter/FriendFeed)


Twitter has been confounding traditional marketers with its wild success since it first appeared on the scene. Defying traditional measurement methods, and even defying basic web practices for a successful web site like consistent up time and scalability, Twitter has found its way into daily use for a growing number of people and businesses, including traditional news media like CNN and CSPAN. I would argue that its ease of use, lack of rules and "Wild West" atmosphere along with its a la carte usage practices have been its secret weapons.

Arriving on the scene to change all of that this week is Qwitter. Qwitter sounds innocuous enough on the surface - a web site that offers to send you an email showing who has unfollowed you and including the last tweet you sent before they did as a possible "reason" for the unfollowing. Up until now, the best feature of Twitter has been a level of anonymity for blocking people and unfollowing them. It kept people from getting their feelings hurt, from obsessing over metrics and popularity, and above all from harassing people over why they make decisions about managing their own Twitter stream.

What Qwitter has done with this unnecessary "service" (and I use that term loosely) is turn a very mundane, passive act that usually reflects more on a person's available time than a follower's actions into an act of aggression with some seemingly dubious "reason" behind it. I can see this turning ugly, as friends who discover that friends sometimes unfollow them take it personally. This means instead of realizing that on Twitter you can go back and forth with a kind of ebb and flow as needed, those with hurt feelings from being unfollowed proceed to email demanding logic, reasons, and possibly even threatening retaliation or repercussions. Qwitter feeds insecurity and neuroses by making something simple into some kind of seeming failure or insult.

If you don't understand what I mean by Twitter being a la carte or having a follower ebb and flow, look at my follower count during a debate or a hockey game - droves of people unfollow me until I shut up again. In general unfollow decisions really are that simple, and usually the person comes back after the Tweeter in question stops being so noisy. If they don't, it's still ok. It isn't personal. I know I personally don't tend to unfollow people at all unless they start to pitch me ads instead of being real on Twitter, but that's just how I use Twitter. The beauty of Twitter is that each user, up until now, has been able to make it fully their own.

The thing about the internet is that it has a tendency to turn aggressive in a hurry. Twitter has, until now, avoided that Internet Troll atmosphere and been a relatively happy place to connect with people online in a very low-key and self-directed way. There are a few Twitter Trolls, but not that many, thanks largely to the anonymous unfollow and anonymous block features. Qwitter changes that, and for what? Judging by their own footer, it seems they want to force a Twitter buy out by messing with the atmosphere on the Twitter site.


Qwitter is not affiliated with Twitter, but wouldn't it be cool if it was?
I am not the only one who has noticed the impact Qwitter could have on our beloved Twitter. Laura Fitton noted the effects the loss of anonymity would have on Twitter in several Tweets yesterday, as did fellow Tweeters Andrew Feinberg and others. In discussing with me the possibility that Qwitter made this service solely to create a disturbance in the Twitter Force and create a need for a buy out, Twitter user Joan Marie had this to say: "Buy us to stop the dysfunction we've introduced." Is Qwitter the latest in a long line of companies trying to monetize their product through being bought out? If so, I have to give them credit for being the first to try putting a disruptive, negative spin on a good thing - monetization through destruction is at least new, if a bit evil.

Read more by Leslie Poston at Uptown Uncorked.