FriendFeed Replaces Google Reader? Maybe

27 Mar 2008

Google Reader is green with envy.

Well, at least in my house it is. Why? I’ve been using FriendFeed as my primary source of news and information for the past two weeks. Google Reader used to dominate my information consumption until I found FriendFeed. I would scour my list of RSS feeds and “share” the ones that I found to be interesting. Periodically, I would also “star” a story in Google Reader to come back and read later.

I’ve since adapted to FriendFeed and have been using the data filtering combined with “likes” and comments. Since I have an RSS feed for my “likes”, I still can share with friends the interesting stories I find, but now I can also include from many different types of sources and not just blogs. I can share a funny Tweet I saw on Twitter, I can share a hilarious Flickr photo, I can share a great comment I saw from Disqus, and also share Google reader shared items from others! This is all done while maintaining a conversation within FriendFeed.

Now with all this, I did have a void. None of the people I follow on FriendFeed are avid gamers (if they are, they don’t share much information about it) so I needs my gaming news. To fill this void, I simply added “Imaginary friends” to FriendFeed for some of my favorite gaming websites. This video shows the process:

Now that this is done, I can now see my favorite gaming news alongside the thousands of great links that comes across various social networks including Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, del.icio.us, Google Reader shared items, etc. Now that FriendFeed has released an API for the world to use, I don’t know if my return to Google Reader will be anytime soon, if at all.

We shall see.

Tags: Aggregators, friendfeed, Google Reader, Joystiq, rss, Software, Utility, Web 2.0

Jeff Gamble

I rely on google reader so much. I'm not sure I can ever not find myself on there as soon as I power up my machine. I have to admit Friendfeed is pretty addictive while Twitter isn't so much addictive for me.
edythe

yup. kind of how i feel about it, too.
Aviv Shaham

What would really be nice is the ability to add custom Tabs... endless possibilities! FriendFeed would turn into a platform.
Bwana

I think this is highly possible with the API. You're going to see this real soon, I guarantee.
Aviv Shaham

Ah, who's got time to wait! Let's Greasemonkey our way into the tabs! :)
Ontario Emperor

Why I won't switch entirely - at least not yet.

(1) As of now, Google Reader has a better mobile interface than FriendFeed. Mobile Google Reader lets me read, share, and star items. FriendFeed has no official mobile counterpart. This prevents me from liking items on FriendFeed.

(2) The idea of "marking items as read" has not been implemented in FriendFeed, as far as I can tell. I am heavily dependent upon that particular feature.

(3) The last issue is kind of personal. My primary use of Google Reader is to find things to blog about, so you can say it's my counterpart to Blogger. My primary use of FriendFeed is to interact with people, so you can say it's my counterpart to Twitter. At least in my mind, the two applications address two separate needs.
n8k99

there is a GreaseMonkey script which hides links you have already visited http://internetducttape.com/2008/03/28/friendfe...
along with more yummy goodness!
Bwana

Definitely agree with #1 although it is usable on the iPhone. I get by #2 because I check FF at least every other hour and I have a good idea of where I left off.

As for #3, FF is flexible enough for me to serve both purposes. One thing I do miss is keyboard shortcuts
atul

It would be nice for FriendFeed to provide an import OPML capability so that one can import all the google reader feeds as imaginary friends automagically.
Bwana

Agreed, OPML import would be nice.
Aviv Shaham

Well I'm done with the code that injects FF with new imaginary friends and registering services for them. I'll make a little command-line utility for this. (I hope the FF crew won't mind. If it's an issue.. well just say so). Besides importing OPML - is there anything else you want it to do while we're at it?
engtech

Sweet Aviv. I think you just saved my weekend.
Bwana

cool! i don't know of any other features I need at the moment. Too many possibilities!
Aviv Shaham

Until they add some account management capabilities to the API, I suppose you could automate the process by generating the AJAX calls programmatically. Let's see if I get around to it tonight... Only because it's FF!
StevenHodson

excellent post sir :)