There are at least 2 possibilities: 1) These sites aren't serving real (basic) human needs, so the masses ignore them or try them and don't like them, or 2) The masses do not yet well see what needs they do and can serve, and over time and as the early adopters add to their success via these tools others - more of them - will want them also.
Every early technology, as Scoble recently articulately pointed out and others have as well, at the beginning has appeared only "geekish" (my, not his term) before going mainstream. Some technologies stay geekish and never reach mainstream adoption. What determines mainstream adoption? Read Geoffrey Moore's "The Chasm" which is the classic defining work detailing that journey (technology lifestyle adoption) is the must read for anyone interested in that process.
Dustin Coates
· 1 year ago
I don't see this really as anything more than the echo chamber playing something up. And I hesitate to call people who are using these services (especially FriendFeed) as early adopters, because that implies that other people will adopt as well.
Take a look at feed readers. Maybe most of the people you know and work with use them, but talk to people who don't spend 30 hours a day online and you'll find a different story. If people aren't using RSS, I don't see them using lifestyle aggregators.
Also, why would they go to FriendFeed when a Facebook does nearly the exact same thing? They wouldn't and I don't think they want Facebook doing the same thing. Remember the hoopla about the News Feed? People don't want to let everyone know everything they're up to online.
Christopher Clay
· 1 year ago
I agree with this analysis: Lifestreaming alone has limited reach. The liking and commenting features on FriendFeed are a step in the right direction, and among the reasons why they rose above older offerings like Readr, Profilactic, iStalkr etc so quickly.
At our project Soup.io lifestreaming is just one component, a tool to ease content creation and avoid forcing people to switch from other services or duplicate efforts: Tumblelogging features are the main attraction, and those are much more mainstream-friendly.
If you compare our public timeline (http://soup.io) with FriendFeed's (http://friendfeed.com/public), I think you'll agree that one is more lively and fun and contains more mainstream content. Even just graphically: FriendFeed is a sober, app-like service to aggregate as many notifications of online activities together as efficiently as possible, which will appeal to the same people RSS readers appeal to. Soup on the other hand is all about self-expression and customization: It's more about the author and creator than the reader and consumer.
So to sum it up: I believe lifestreaming, aggregation and data portability functionality will increasingly be built into web apps to augment them, rather than being the main attraction.
bhc3
· 1 year ago
Mark - aside from the whole early adopter/mainstream debate, I've been wondering about the fundamental nature of the Twitter and FriendFeed. Corvida's post about her day off from Twitter and FriendFeed got me wondering about those two services, and their differences. Sure, both are social media, heavy on participation. But the type of participation is different for the two services. Here's one way to look at it:
Twitter is conversations with people FriendFeed is conversations with content
I think delving a bit more deeply into why early adopters are using the two services may uncover some thoughts about their mainstream adoption. Dustin's comment above about FriendFeed and Facebook speaks volumes about the need to understand these services better.
I'm a technophile who demands function, eschewing bleeding-edge for its own sake. A bellwether in some ways. I don't need to hear what every member of the echo chamber is saying by the minute or hour, but I do want to know what's hot today and and I want to see the big-picture trends.
Twitter is cool. Techmeme is great, as is NewsTrust. RSS is a even little out of control for mainstream users though. Too many aggregators aggregating the same stuff, so you have to either wade through a ton of dupes to find what you want, or weed out and risk missing something. Few people are going to go through the trouble of something like Pipes to optimize, they're more likely to prune.
FriendFeed is very useful, but so far, it doesn't even have the penetration of Twitter, so it's less useful to those outside the bubble. There's a lot of potential, but FriendFeed, or whatever tool like it, that achieves penetration into the mainstream, must respect open standards and must respect privacy desires of its users. Aggregation is key though since there are too many competing services and protocols.
Trigeia
· 1 year ago
For us this is an issue of EXPERIENCE! and Engagement.
I think aggregation will go mainstream one day, but that this will be an early adopter thing for at least a year more.
Then aggregation models will mature as well as user needs. The big question is what kind of added value a service provides to the aggregated content streams.
All Comments
1) These sites aren't serving real (basic) human needs, so the masses ignore them or try them and don't like them, or
2) The masses do not yet well see what needs they do and can serve, and over time and as the early adopters add to their success via these tools others - more of them - will want them also.
Every early technology, as Scoble recently articulately pointed out and others have as well, at the beginning has appeared only "geekish" (my, not his term) before going mainstream. Some technologies stay geekish and never reach mainstream adoption. What determines mainstream adoption? Read Geoffrey Moore's "The Chasm" which is the classic defining work detailing that journey (technology lifestyle adoption) is the must read for anyone interested in that process.
Take a look at feed readers. Maybe most of the people you know and work with use them, but talk to people who don't spend 30 hours a day online and you'll find a different story. If people aren't using RSS, I don't see them using lifestyle aggregators.
Also, why would they go to FriendFeed when a Facebook does nearly the exact same thing? They wouldn't and I don't think they want Facebook doing the same thing. Remember the hoopla about the News Feed? People don't want to let everyone know everything they're up to online.
At our project Soup.io lifestreaming is just one component, a tool to ease content creation and avoid forcing people to switch from other services or duplicate efforts: Tumblelogging features are the main attraction, and those are much more mainstream-friendly.
If you compare our public timeline (http://soup.io) with FriendFeed's (http://friendfeed.com/public), I think you'll agree that one is more lively and fun and contains more mainstream content.
Even just graphically: FriendFeed is a sober, app-like service to aggregate as many notifications of online activities together as efficiently as possible, which will appeal to the same people RSS readers appeal to. Soup on the other hand is all about self-expression and customization: It's more about the author and creator than the reader and consumer.
So to sum it up: I believe lifestreaming, aggregation and data portability functionality will increasingly be built into web apps to augment them, rather than being the main attraction.
Twitter is conversations with people
FriendFeed is conversations with content
I think delving a bit more deeply into why early adopters are using the two services may uncover some thoughts about their mainstream adoption. Dustin's comment above about FriendFeed and Facebook speaks volumes about the need to understand these services better.
I blog today about that, here: http://tinyurl.com/59rzyk
Twitter is cool. Techmeme is great, as is NewsTrust. RSS is a even little out of control for mainstream users though. Too many aggregators aggregating the same stuff, so you have to either wade through a ton of dupes to find what you want, or weed out and risk missing something. Few people are going to go through the trouble of something like Pipes to optimize, they're more likely to prune.
FriendFeed is very useful, but so far, it doesn't even have the penetration of Twitter, so it's less useful to those outside the bubble. There's a lot of potential, but FriendFeed, or whatever tool like it, that achieves penetration into the mainstream, must respect open standards and must respect privacy desires of its users. Aggregation is key though since there are too many competing services and protocols.
Twin2
www.trigeia.com
Then aggregation models will mature as well as user needs. The big question is what kind of added value a service provides to the aggregated content streams.