Okay, so there has been this debate of sorts going around the tech/geek community for the last week or more basically paring twitter vs FriendFeed. And like I said on iJustine’s blog about it, I think the entire debate is null because it’s like comparing apples to an entire fruit salad. Twitter is micro blogging and FriendFeed is an aggregate for 41 different applications, including Twitter, with other features like commenting. You really just can’t compare them other than to say that they are both social networking sites but so are MySpace and Facebook and look how different they are. (In case you don’t get how they are different: MySpace sucks balls and Facebook doesn’t. IF YOU LEARN NOTHING ELSE FROM THIS BLOG POST, LEARN THAT!)
The debate is also questioning which one will become mainstream first, if either ever will. My opinion? I don’t really see it happening. When I try and explain the concept of twitter to non-geek folk, they just look at me with a blank stare and inevitably the same response: But, why? They just don’t get the micro blogging community as a whole. Now, compare it to a MySpace bulletin and eyes light up and lights come on and angels sing and THERE IT IS! There’s UNDERSTANDING in the eyes, they get it! Then you say, well just cut out all the spammy shit and do it in less then 140 characters. And THERE IT IS AGAIN, the blank stare.
I think that realistically, twitter stands more of a chance to become mainstream just because FriendFeed has SO MUCH of Teh Geek linked to it. Walk up to your mom, aunt or dentist and ask them what Vimeo is. Or brightkite. Or del.icio.us. Or hell, even Digg. Chance are if you are reading this blog you’ve heard of all or most of those but I bet you that your “mainstream” friends have NO CLUE. So how are they supposed to ever really grasp FriendFeed, which is just an aggregate of all those services?
Anyway, this post was originally going somewhere else and ended up here. So with that I’ll ask your opinion! What are your favorite Social Networking tools? I updated my FriendFeed accout today to include most of them that I use and there are SEVENTEEN accounts.
My FriendFeed account links to:
- brightkite
- del.icio.us
- Digg
- Flickr
- GoogleReader shared items
- GoogleTalk status changes
- Intense Debate
- Pownce
- StumbleUpon
- Tumblr
- Vimeo
- YouTube
- Zooomr
- Aflux’s RSS feed
And that’s just where I got to before I got tired of adding them to FriendFeed. Add me to any or all or none. I’m just kind of interested to see how many of these ACTUALLY get used because on some of them I’ve signed up to secure the name, played with them a bit, then completely forgotten about them. I’m going to pay attention to FriendFeed for the next few days and see how much any of them actually get used and based on your answers to which you use more, see if maybe twitter isn’t as popular as some of these debates would have you think… but I’m skeptical. I get a lot of twitter traffic.