What is FriendFeed?

A while ago I wrote about Google’s relatively new Social Graph API.

Today I keep running into FriendFeed, which is an open-to-the-web approximation of Facebook’s newsfeed, complete with a bookmarklet to add “posted items.”

[ As a side-note of complete confusion, I have not to my knowledge signed up for a FriendFeed account, but my usual username (Jasonp107) was taken. In a "rit of fealous jage" I angrily logged in with my usual password and...became logged in. Whoever signed up to FriendFeed as me, I have now officially hijaked my identity back from you, and I am changing all my passwords. ]

I added almost everything on their list of things to add, from Netflix to FlickR. One of the cool things about the blog adding feature is that you can add just one author on a blog with multiple authors. My posts from this blog will feed through there, but ONLY my own posts, not those by anyone else.

Here’s my FriendFeed. It’s basically my lifestream. I’m still trying to figure out how to follow people, and how to see their items in a digest.

I see a bigger trend here.

AOL (closed) –> The Internet (open).

Message Boards/User Groups (often closed) –> Blogs (open).

Social Network Connections (often closed) –> Social Graph API (open).

FB Status Updates (closed) –> Twitter (open).

Facebook Newsfeed (closed) –> FriendFeed (open).

We’re slowly seeing all the social componenets of social networks being developed as disparate, micro-services on the open web. Pull those together with a blog, and sooner or later, what do you need a social network for?

(Reality check: social networks would serve the same purpose as hosted blogs vs. self-hosted blogs or macs vs build-your-own PCs — no setup required)

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