So everyone is all abuzz with the recent announcement that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. According to the folks at FriendFeed,

The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team. We’ve always been great admirers of Facebook, and our companies share a common vision. Now we have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world and to work alongside Facebook’s passionate engineers to create even more ways for you to easily share with your friends online.

What does this mean? Well, it means Facebook gets an excellent development team from Friendfeed and access to the technology. After all, Facebook has been incorporating FriendFeed-type functionality already this year, with the addition of the real-time streaming news feed. The folks at FriendFeed have made it clear that, for now, nothing is changing with either the API or individual FriendFeed accounts, but that it’s time to look towards the future.

As for Facebook, they issued a press release that states

“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founder. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”

Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.

“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use.”

Sometimes I wonder about acquisitions and wonder if companies are buying for the sake of buying. This is one partnership that works in my mind and that will, hopefully, benefit all of us who use Facebook.

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

by Brian Solis

Thank you Louis Gray for the invitation to the FriendFeed event tonight. Every so often, FriendFeed hosts its TGIFF (Thank Goodness It’s FriendFeed) where they invite FF enthusiasts to the company’s HQ to eat, drink and discuss everything from the state of FriendFeed and its next iterations to Silicon Valley and the future of the Web.

Tonight, I spent time with the FriendFeed team as well as with good friends Louis Gray, Steve Gillmor, Jeremiah Owyang, and Steve Rubel.

Perhaps the event was best immortalized with this picture of the FriendFeed team:

Dan Hsiao, Casey Muller, Ana Yang, Jim Norris, Tudor Bosman, Bret Taylor, Paul Buchheit (with Camilla), Sanjeev Singh, Kevin Fox

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Louis Gray, Steve Rubel, Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang

Steve Gillmor and Jeremiah Owyang

Steve Rubel with a Kindle version my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations”

For more pictures from TGIFF, please visit my album on Flickr.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

Read more from Brian Solis:

Blog: PR 2.0
Book: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
Social Map: The Conversation Prism

by Michelle Lentz

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new real-time updating feature in your news feed. Similar to how Twitter Search displays recent additions, Facebook will display a link under your status field: “Show X New Posts.” If you click the link, you’ll free the new updates. So while it’s not as engaging (or distracting) as FriendFeed’s live updating of the stream, it is more controlled.

I like the idea of being able to see when there are new updates, without having to continually check the page or feel like I’ve missed something (as I do with FriendFeed). Facebook is rolling the new update out gradually, whatever that means.

What do you think of real-time feeds on Facebook?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Today I noticed a new option in my Facebook feed: “Like”.  I consider this part of Facebook’s bid to quietly take over the social media world – their quest, you could say, to be the only social media app you’ll ever need. After all you can blog on Facebook (Notes), they’ve now released the API for their status updates (Twitter), and their News Feed coupled with “Like” brings them into Friendfeed territory.

Actually, I like “Like.”  I can now give a quick thumbs up to more things I like without having to write a comment “Hey I like this!”  Now when I do comment, I can concentrate on more meaningful things and just click the Like button.

What do you think of Facebook’s ever improving interface?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel, Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Nominee for City Beat’s Best of the City: Vote for My Wine Education under Public Eye > Blog:
http://www.bestofcincinnati.com/

by Brian Solis, sourced from PR 2.0

I recently discussed the viability of Twitter evolving beyond a micro community into a standardized platform for macro conversations. It’s certainly the path Facebook is traversing. And, both are making significant progress in the race to syndicate and aggregate the discussions that are important to us within our respective social networks.

There is another emerging platform worth discussing as it is quietly growing into an alternative solution to the disparate communities that are pervasive throughout the social web.

Ladies and gentlemen, add FriendFeed to your radar for listening, participation, and relationship building.

Defining FriendFeed is easier said than done. In fact, it’s less of a competitor to Twitter and more of a vertical threat to Facebook’s prized News Feed. The News Feed feature in Facebook is considered the central nervous system to the social graph. It powers conversations, connections, and collaboration. As Facebook Connect “connects” you and your social graph across the Web, it will increase in value as it aggregates all outside activity into one centralized stream for your friends, and friends of friends, to review, interpret, and respond. Also, don’t rule out an acquisition of Twitter either.

FriendFeed is one of the most prominent examples of a dedicated lifestream (brandstream). It channels your social activity and also that of your social graph into one simplified river of relevance. As new items appear in the stream, it invites bookmarking and threaded conversations that promote dialog. For example, you can import activity from flickr, youtube, twitter, backtype, blogs, Last.fm, Seesmic, Upcoming, LinkedIn, Yelp, Amazon, Picasa, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Disqus, and 12 seconds. The growing list of services currently sits at 60, but technically you can integrate any service that generates an RSS feed. Most important is FriendFeed’s ability to port your Facebook status into your stream. Technically, you can now host, contribute to and participate in a more comprehensive “news feed” with the potential of reaching a far greater, or perhaps focused and dedicated audience of people who either aren’t on Facebook or prefer something different.

FriendFeed is also unique in that it offers custom rooms to host and join dedicated conversations related to any given topic. Your stream can also export to websites, outside communities, blogs and social profiles.

We celebrated Twitter’s rise to 4.5 million uniques in just over two years, which was enough to surpass Digg’s highly regarded traffic milestone. In less than a year, FriendFeed is nearing one million unique visitors, representing a 3,170% increase.

When compared to other social aggregation and lifestream services, FriendFeed’s trajectory is incredibly promising. You’ll also note that the category represented through the following services is also on the rise, with Tumblr at 1.4 million unique visitors, AOL’s SocialThing realizing 186% annual growth and Google’s Jaiku open micro community platform is still on the rise with a 33% increase over the last year..

If you compare FriendFeed to other micro communities, it appears to be the only platform that is not only growing, but also cultivating an active and significant user base. Plurk is the largest alternative micro community with 256,000 unique visitors and Yammer places a distant third at 86,000.

FriendFeed will only continue to increase in significance, broadening its reach, expanding its user base, and diversifying its user base from early adopters to mainstream market catalysts over the next year. This momentum will continue to be fueled by the addition of new and popular services combined with the dedicated evangelism and amplified awareness generated by influential (and passionate) users such as Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Michael Arrington, Dan Farber, Chris Messina, Brian Oberkirch, Loic Le Meur, and Dave Winer. And, it’s not just the usual voices who will propel FriendFeed as a viable conversation platform, it extends to the many, many others who are authoritative and trusted within their dedicated spheres of influence and reach.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

by Brian Solis (for a deeper discussion on the subject, please visit PR 2.0)

Mark Zuckerberg

Kara Swisher FTW – again!

During the Web 2.0 Summit, John Batelle interviewed Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and if you listened closely enough, it was clear that Batelle was prodding Zuckerberg to validate the rumors that Facebook was exploring the possibility of acquiring Twitter.

With a teasing smile, Zuckerberg described Twitter an “elegant model” and professed that he was “ impressed by what they’ve done.”

Following the session, attendees poured into the hallways dissecting the dialogue to support or discount the prospect of such a bold acquisition.

Kara Swisher has confirmed the rumors, however, an acquisition is not imminent – at least not yet.

Twitter has grown by over 600% in one year. From a business perspective, I can understand why Facebook would consider engaging in negotiations. Twitter is currently reporting six million registered users and last month, the micro community experienced its greatest traffic to date – no doubt bolstered by the 2008 Election.

The deal was close to finalization, but (thankfully) fell apart for very valid reasons.

According to Kara Swisher’s post, Facebook was attempting to acquire Twitter for $500 million in a pure stock deal based on Facebook’s disputed $15 billion valuation. Analysts peg the true estimate of Facebook’s market value closer to $5 billion, which would have positioned Twitter’s sale price at roughly $150 million – a number that investors, the board, and the company’s founders believe is far too low.

Twitter wanted cash and that’s understandable in this market. And there’s a pervasive sentiment that the company might just have a run at generating revenue while continuing to grow the community and how its users communicate with each other in the process.

From Facebook’s perspective, the stock offer was reflective of a conservative approach that reflects the reality that Twitter is not only generating $0 revenue, but its basically a substantial cost center at the moment. At the moment, Twitter pays for SMS fees associated with each text-based update. Facebook estimates that this could cost the company upwards of $75 million annually.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

By Miiko Mentz

Given that Bub.blicio.us readers/viewers are highly tech savvy, I will take the liberty to assume that many of you are broadcasting your life on the Web and following and interacting with your friends using lifestreaming services such as FriendFeed and Seesmic. I enjoy both services so it was great fun catching up with Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur and FriendFeed Co-founder Bret Taylor recently where we turned over the Bub.blicio.us mic to Bret and had him interview Loic.

The two are speaking at a MIT/Standfor Venture Lab (VLAB) event at Stanford tonight where Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things Digital, Wall Street Journal, will be moderating the “Lifestreaming: The Real-time Web” panel. Softtech VC Founder Jeff Clavier and Pownce Co-founder Leah Culver will be joining Loic and Brett on tonight’s panel. Tonight’s VLAB event is sold out, but there are a limited number of walk-in tickets available. For more information visit: VLAB Lifestreaming: The Real-time Web.

by Brian Solis, deeper analysis and review available at PR 2.0

Conversations continue to splinter throughout every new blog post, micromedia community, network, lifestream and aggregated community across the Social Web. While some services are attempting to aggregate and host these conversations through a personal, customizable dashboard supported by yet another complementary social network, the truth is that they only continue to fragment our attention as well as our ability to consistently participate in every community where our contribution may be beneficial.

Through participation, we earn relationships and hopefully build authority by contributing helpful advice, information and insight. We also learn more about the subjects in which we’re interested, creating a deeper understanding of the dynamics associated with not only the subject matter, but also the community view and reaction to it. In the process, we establish and cultivate our online brand, reputation, and associated expertise that is only fortified through every new piece of content we publish and every comment we share.

Social platform services such as SezWho (which is running on PR 2.0 and bub.blicio.us) are formally packaging our expertise through the aggregation of our comments and the ratings our insight as defined by other members of each community. Through SezWho, for example, we can build our own online dossier that presents a comprehensive list of our thoughts and ideas as contributed in blog posts, comments, forums, and other related Web sites.

The process of listening isn’t only relegated to the research and analysis of individual reputations. Listening is also instrumental in the creation of new communications and service initiatives as well unearthing the specific conversations that matter to your brand – for gathering data and also discovering opportunities to respond.

Introducing BackType, a service that I believe, is navigating conversations back to the blogosphere.

BackType is a new service that brings blog post comments back into the spotlight. Whether you’re managing an online reputation management (ORM) or an online monitoring system (OMS), BackType allows you to search keywords across the blogosphere to uncover important conversations that may require our participation, or at the very least, provide you with insight into critical community perspective. You can also search all comments by a particular person and date range to create a snapshot of someone’s area of focus, bias, or expertise.

The new service is built upon a social framework that is also, yes, a social network. We can create a profile that, as usual, portrays our persona in a way that hopefully contributes to our strategically crafted online brand.

BackType connects us not only to the comments that are important to us, but also to like-minded thought leaders and the posts that compel them to share their thoughts, in addition to extending the conversation thread by publishing related content on their own blogs.

When you log on to BackType, you can search comments or find and follow people that are worth tracking. Each time you hit your dashboard, BackType provides an aggregated view of the comments made by your peers to stay connected to and learn from their activity.

Perhaps most notably, you can bookmark, share, and also reply to comments from the dashboard to immediately add your views to each and every related conversation and also incrementally contribute to your personal and professional credibility.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook