You Think Only The A-List Can Have Fun On FriendFeed? Make Yourself Part Of The Experience
There are some major differences between Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington of TechCrunch. I mean, for starters, Scoble is a blond-haired vixen (presumptively natural), and Mike is a feisty brunette. And even beyond physical characteristics lies a deeper truth.
You can argue that overall, on the big scheme of things, Mike Arrington and TechCrunch has more influence on emerging technology than little ole Robert Scoble. In fact, I think many of us wouldn’t know who Robert Scoble is if it weren’t for his massive input into the multiple social communities which he lurks. We might have heard his name dropped before, but not know who or what the man does.
I’ve heard some arguments popping up about how FriendFeed is only useful for the A-List of technology and media. And of course you could make that arguement, but after actually participating in the FriendFeed community, it’s clear that this isn’t the case. There are plenty of people using FriendFeed who are certainly not A-List, or even B-List names in any industry, yet have a good time with the service. And do you know why?
It’s because they participate.
It’s not about impressing the big guys, or being a big name personality. As long as you participate in the community, you’re bound to have a positive experience. Much like Twitter, the few first moments can be daunting. It’s the point where you have no one following you, and no stories popping up on your timeline to catch your eye. Before you can really participate in any community, you need an audience.
And what’s cool about Twitter and FriendFeed is that you have an instant “kinetic” audience. A potential audience. Take a look in the Public Timeline in Twitter or the Everybody tab in FriendFeed, and you see the community is alive and kicking, and it’s not the big names that govern it. They might help give it a push, but it is a group experience.
I’m not going to flatter myself. I wouldn’t call myself a well-known figure of technology. In fact, I have no idea how far my influence branches. But what I do know, is that influence is only proportional to the people you effect. Whether it be 20,000 - 200- or 2.
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I also liked the point you made earlier that in Twitter, there’s a definite caste system based on how many followers you have, i.e., the more followers you have, the more important you must be.
That’s non-existent in FriendFeed, people just want to converse, no one cares how many people are subscribed to you.
I really don’t understand friendfeed. I’ve been trying to watch it and play with it but Twitter seems so much more intuitive. Your whole ‘participate’ push is meaningless to me because in all honesty Friendfeed and even Twitter don’t really give you anything to help you understand how you can use their services.
All they say is this is what we do. It is great that they don’t limit your experience by saying you can only do this but newcomers can often be overwhelmed and perplexed at how to fit such a service into their life…especially when they are utilizing 2 other ’social’ networks. Who really needs 15 social networks to keep up with?
well you know I disagree. I have a feeling I’m the one who pointed this out to you, but the fact is that the only way a newcomer can really compete with the exponential exposure system of friendfeed is by cheating the system and creating multiple friendfeed accounts that comment on your own posts. Very rarely do I see any new names popping around that don’t have over 4000 follows on twitter and 4000 friends on facebook. On twitter… (and yes it is a tyranny because they have presumption and pretensions that they don’t censor when they really do and yes it crashes and yes they are a bunch of wankers with a lousy server or whatever), but the one good thing about twitter is I can have an awesome time as an unknown. In fact when I had around 1000 followers on twitter before panopticons, I did not have the good time I am having now with 100 followers. I have an intimacy that wasn’t there before and I can get to know people. I suppose this will eventually happen too with friendfeed, but right now it appears to be a lot of garbled self love coming out of AList heaven. In some ways making enemies in these networks makes the networks workable, because you can enjoy yourself once you have burned yourself out. If you want marketing exposure, it’s better to just buy it with hard cash. I’m sure a fat paycheck would get Robert Scoble to say Noah David Simon really is the bomb.
I think there is a definite caste system on FF. It’s just ruled by a different caste than some of the other places online. TechCrunch has Techmeme, Scoble and Calacanis have Twitter, and Scoble and Louis Gray have FriendFeed. I follow only a few people on FF I feel I HAVE to follow in addition to my friends, but I see a lot of things pass by with no comments. It still depends on who you are. But yes, until you interact there, you are summarily ignored. There is no recognition of static FriendFeeds.
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