DISQUS

Shey · 1 year ago

This was a great post Lindsay, you have some really interesting ideas. FF as an intelligent app would be killer -- I agree that the potential is there.

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

Thanks for your thoughts and for stopping by, Shey. I've been thinking about all that for a couple of days now. It all seems to fit for me and if it's true it's very exciting.

tommyl · 1 year ago

Lots of imaginative and exciting ideas here. But it's not too early to think about the privacy implications of this sort of agent. Even if FF doesn't go in this direction, you know that some one will.

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

Hi Tommyl. At this point everything you're sharing in FriendFeed is public anyway or at least all the services that you are hooking into are from public feeds. I hadn't thought of any issues with privacy because of that. Would you share the ones you had in mind?

noahcarter · 1 year ago

This was a great post - and one I never would have read had I not been scrolling through FriendFeed. I endured the FF learning curve and now "get it.", but it wasn't easy. It's all great here in the echo chamber - just wish I could invite some of my less web 2.0-fluent (and more interesting) friends to the party. So far those friends think I've lost my mind - they may be right.

tommyl · 1 year ago

I don't think privacy is a show stopper here, but it would be nice to have at least some choices. I was thinking more of sharing what gets processed out of the mishmash of stuff that we put up on Friendfeed, or whatever it becomes. By sharing, do I implicitly give permission to aggregate my stuff for purposes other than simply sharing? Probably. But what if I don't want that? Can I opt out, or do I just put up with (accurately targeted) ads and messages I'd rather not see?

Phil Glockner · 1 year ago

Great post! Your line of thinking seems reasonable and, if true, would really leverage FriendFeed in a direction -- and into a product -- that would be unique and much sought after!

Siggi · 1 year ago

I am also member of Twine in beta and there are great similarities. Twine=rooms. But Twine seems to have some semantic dschingderassa build in from the start. Have to see which of these services will do what and when for whom... I have my virtual popcorn ready to watch this race ;-)

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

I just took the tour at Twine and I think the difference there is that Twine is a repository instead of an aggregator. I like the fact that while I can find everything on FriendFeed it's not the service I use to STORE my data. I can still use specialized services like Flickr for photos, Del.icio.us for bookmarks, my blog for publishing, etc. Twine would rather you import all that content into Twine and use it as a replacement for your blog, community sites, etc. It's kind of a walled garden. Yes, it's easier to potentially create a semantic tool that way, but it locks you in. If they go away so does all my data. Not so with FriendFeed (other than the discussions I had there). If Twine had come out a couple of years ago I'd probably have loved it, but I just feel more comfortable for some reason using FriendFeed.

Phil Glockner · 1 year ago

Haven't used Twine yet, but I can easily see this. I am worried that Jaiku is the same way. These lifestream aggregators don't seem to get that people don't necessarily want to index and store everything themselves. Most people have a service (or several) for this already.

I think Facebook is the exception in that it has both streams and repository. Of course, that makes it a bit confusing to get used to initially, but also makes it very flexible in how people use it.

And then we have Google, which wants people to think that what they are doing is fleeting and transitory, but they are quietly archiving it all anyway. LOL

Siggi · 1 year ago

Right. One point is, it has to beat my info-infrastructure by a factor (10?). As you say: deli per RSS into Google Reader, and all the other services too. FF? -> into the reader. As it seems there comes nothing out of Twine, except you use a reader-client with password. At the moment it looks more like a toy (in a beautiful garden) than a tool.

Corvida Raven · 1 year ago

This post just made me realize how much these guys really have great experience with Google. FriendFeed now knows more about my reading habits than I do! Talk about great for advertising.

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

Right. It's obvious that they've picked up strategies from their time at Google. Number one being It's all a matter of attracting critical mass: make a service that's so sticky and beneficial to it's users that it becomes indispensable. I'm continually impressed with how FriendFeed is such a simple idea but so powerful at the same time.

nova spivack · 1 year ago

Actually Twine doesn't require you to store all your data there. But (currently) it does require you to at least bookmark or email a reference in so Twine knows about it and can represent it in Twine.

In the near future Twine will support capabilities to integrate with external accounts as well.

Twine is where stuff is organized and connected, but not necessarily where it lives. For example, when you bookmark in a YouTube video, Twine just points to it.

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

I think maybe this post is the one by "this person" that Steven Hodson is talking about a few minutes in when he mentions intelligent agents on the Elite Tech Podcast #9 (http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2008/05/26/...). Guess I'm not well known enough to be mentioned by name, but that's ok. :) Very cool to hear someone talk about the ideas.

igorthetroll · 1 year ago

Sounds like you describing the worlds biggest nightmare! I want to chose for myself not have it served Beverly Hills, 90210. And for your information Google serves Wikipedia 90% of the time!

So I hope your Machine controlled universe for Friend Feed will not materialize! Go walk on the beach and escape the Matrix! LOL

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

It's generally not a wise decision to respond to trolls, but ehh, what the heck.

There's probably only a small chance that I'm actually right, and even if I am, it's not like anyone's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to continue using FriendFeed if it evolves like I've suggested. If you don't like it, I'm sure there would be plenty of non-intelligent services still around for you to choose from. Personally, I think anything that can save me time and effort, educate me and entertain me more each time I use it is a good thing.

To each, his own.

Beach Paintings · 1 year ago

you are very smart.
friendfeed definitely can do this.
and if they aren't planning it,
they need to get over here,
and read this because it will make them wealthy.

you have many great ideas,
and almost all of them i agree with.

once again, another excellent read.