DISQUS

louisgray.com: louisgray.com: Bret Taylor Discusses FriendFeed's Road to Monetization, Early Missteps

  • ontarioemperor · 1 year ago
    Thanks for attending. Bret's comment on not realizing how popular "likes" would be illustrates that applications are tools, and the value comes when the tool is used. Bret may think he knows how the tool will be used, but it isn't until the tool is in the hands of users that the good and bad things are illustrated. It makes me wonder how FriendFeed will change as the proportion of the user base changes and there are fewer early adopters (or, when 140,000 slightly-underweight Asian teenage girls join the service).
  • Louis Gray · 1 year ago
    Interestingly, Seesmic's Loic Le Meur talked more about how the company is responding to feature requests from users than did FriendFeed. In fact, FriendFeed often talks about how the early adopters are different, and how they want to get to the mainstream. What made FriendFeed work for me, after the initial aggregation, was the ability to have comments and conversation. It's clearly what's helped the site dramatically, and expanded the conflict of bloggers vs. aggregators in terms of where comments reside.
  • secretsushi · 1 year ago
    Great article Louis. Thanks for being there when many of us could not. FriendFeed has definitely turned out to be a daily destination. I remember it initially being coined as a Twitter competitor poised to take all the displeased "Fail Whale" haters and make them whole again. I don't consider it a substitute in my daily routine.
  • gregorylent · 1 year ago
    me and swisher would not get along ...

    the best ad solution? something like zemanta, where you hover the mouse over a comment or category, and a window with other content and an ad appears ... click for the possiblity of an ad, they are there, without them being in your face.
  • Jeremiah Owyang · 1 year ago
    I was really close to going! missed you by a hair.
  • Louis Gray · 1 year ago
    Jeremiah, in terms of being a stalker, you're not a very good one. I keep hearing about places you "just were" or "almost went to". One of these days, we'll both be in the same place at the same time, and you'll discover you don't like me after all. :-)
  • Stephen Pierzchala · 1 year ago
    Louis:

    Why is the software Bret used to make the presentation important?
  • Louis Gray · 1 year ago
    The software Bret used to make the preso wasn't important. It was just
    a detail you'd only get from being there. He and the other presenters
    also used Firefox on Mac laptops, if that is of interest. He did say
    he prefers Linux, and therefore, can't use Chrome, on his main
    computer. It's just background information.
  • Stephen Pierzchala · 1 year ago
    Cool. Just sort of stood out from the rest of the article, as if there was going to be some connection between Keynote and FriendFeed.
  • tadwook · 1 year ago
    i think its interesting all the data they are collecting -- just look at video - this is funny - its a list of the most popular videos on ff — kinda what i thought — politics and cats
    http://www.snackfeed.com/public/friendfeed-
  • lawrence · 1 year ago
    Great write up Louis.
  • Loic Lemeur · 1 year ago
    Hi Louis, I posted Bret's presentation in video here. Audio/video crap but you can hear...
    http://seesmic.com/video/blWbbxqCjR
  • Louis Gray · 1 year ago
    Thanks for posting, Loic. Now, it will be a good test to see how
    accurate my quotes from notes are versus the video of Bret from
    yesterday.
  • Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago
    Very interesting post, thank you Louis. It really shows that we may well end up without the features we suggest (like messaging you mentioned here) but probably we will appreciate what they eventually release even better than what we want now - after all, too many people complained about FriendFeed generating too much noise and making the information stream more relevant to our needs could be much more important than the ability to send a message to someone. Besides, it's good they have started thinking about the business model, it will be interesting if they come up with something similar to Techmeme models with sponsored content mixed with natural content.