Without a doubt the topic du jour in tech and social media circles today is Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed. I won’t go into the details of what organisational changes are expected to occur within both camps since Techmeme is already buzzing with discussion on the matter. What I will say is I am not happy about the news, and if a recent post by Mashable is any indication, I’m not the only one:
“Unusually for an acquisition announcement, around 50% of comments on the official FriendFeed announcement of the deal are negative, with users expressing concerns about the sites being merged, about the FriendFeed community going mainstream and the lack of similarities between the two communities.”
While I am hardly a hardcore FriendFeed user, its key source of value to me has always been that “it’s a tool for sharing and discussion that isn’t Facebook.” There are a number of different elements that I like about FriendFeed – including its public visibility, embeddable threads, group features and notification options – but at the end of the day “it’s not Facebook” has always been it’s strongest asset in my mind.
[Note: I do use Facebook but it is very much a love-hate relationship. I have huge issues with their business rules and user administration policies and once boycotted the service entirely for an 18 month period as a direct result of them]
Having said all this, I can also see the logic behind the business decision. Having observed FriendFeed’s usage trends and demographic for the last few years, the tech sector has always maintained a disproportional presence. As a result, by and large FriendFeed has remained under the radar for general users within the wider social media landscape. Almost certainly this wasn’t the aim of the developers of FriendFeed, however it nonetheless seems to be the case. Twitter usage has continued to skyrocket exponentially, as has Facebook; FriendFeed usage has not.
So in an period in which great services are increasingly going under due to unsustainable (or no) business models, FriendFeed ultimately has to be pragmatic and practical and consider their bottom line. As unhappy as some portions of the existing user-base may be – including myself – they cannot hold a candle to the potential uptake by Facebook’s hundreds of millions of users.
On the other hand, acquisition by a multi-million dollar service does not guarantee longevity, nor success. The swathe of ignored services that Google has acquired over the years only to let to die on the vine are as testimony to this as anything.
Ultimately the fate of FriendFeed remains to be seen. In my case I’ll most likely leave my account active but explore alternatives for discussion and sharing such as Diigo, or perhaps a custom Moodle installation. My priority is maintaining access to my PLN, and there are those amongst it that cannot stand Facebook. I go where the discussions are – if they venture away from FriendFeed, so be it.
