The New FriendFeed: Client Time

April 29th, 2009

FriendFeed, known in my tiny universe as the only social site I use with any regularity anymore other than Twitter, just made their beta live as the default version of the site.

I never got used to the beta and had been using the “old” version up until this point. Some interface tweaks I had hoped for haven’t arrived. Specifically:

Was really hoping for a periodic update of real time. Right now it’s instantaneous, it just would personally make more sense to set it to refresh at some desired interval, like an email client.
Saved searches (filters) don’t update in real time, removing one way to make the real time more manageable. Friend lists filter in real time, but that’s not enough.
Icons of the sources for the content piped in.

Until the first two occur, I set real-time on perma-pause. Otherwise, the sadistic video game / OS X Dock magnification analogy still applies, and I am reluctant to use the website.

But I Don’t Have To Use The Site

But the launch has one very cool development: feed updates via email, IM, or a desktop pop up. You can receive notifications of new posts and comments in your home feed in your email client if you like, and reply by sending off an email. You can pretty much stay active in FriendFeed without ever visiting the website proper.

In addition to the new email feature, there are a few FriendFeed clients that I never checked out until today. I just downloaded BuddyFeed, an iPhone FriendFeed client (as Tweetie is to Twitter). It works pretty well, plus has source icons for shared content and no real time, pretty much taking care of my list above. Likes and comments are easy to do within the app. There’s also Alert Thingy, FriendFeed edition for the desktop which I am just starting to play with. I think I’ll use BuddyFeed and the email option more often than the website itself for now.

Needing clients isn’t a bad thing – Twitter is hugely popular despite having a meh site, mostly because so many Twitter clients (Tweetie, Twitterific, Twhirl) have popped up to make up for the website’s shortcomings.

But while FriendFeed steps ahead in the technology buzz-o-sphere with “real time,” the feeling that I need to use a client reminds me very much of Twitter. And in my tiny universe, where I use Twitter not because I love the service but because so many other people are on it, this beta launch ultimately feels like a step sideways for FriendFeed.

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