DISQUS

louisgray.com: louisgray.com: FriendFeed as a Productivity Tool

  • Louis Gray · 10 months ago
  • Tyler Sid · 10 months ago
    Very inightful and instructive...
  • Arthur Alston · 10 months ago
    I am still not convinced: it is a step in the right direction (I also use Rooms and Lists) but I don't think of FF as a productivity tool yet). I will continue to investigate though.
  • Brian Sullivan · 10 months ago
    It can only be a productivity tool if it helps you produce something -- so if it is helping you produce ideas for your blog I guess it qualifies for you. For the rest of us not so much maybe?
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    Brian, hahaha :-) I suppose it really depends on who you ask. I have had trouble spending more time here and NOT producing something. Been there, and had to learn just a smidgen of moderation.
  • Susan Beebe · 10 months ago
    I use FF for work and it's awesome! I save my research and current items in a room... great tool for me personally.. YES it has lots of features folks aren't even really using yet
  • Brian Sullivan · 10 months ago
    FF is one of those things people just want to rationalize as being needed, important, productive ... no problem I can quit any time. ;-)
  • Curt Mercadante · 10 months ago
    This post hit on an important piece of FF for me: I use it less for FriendFeed - and more to help organize other pieces of my network. I use it to bring in all my various pieces - Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - and then help organize how I place content on those sites. So, while my conversations are rarely held here on FriendFeed, it helps me organize my conversations elsewhere. Does that make sense?
  • Francine Hardaway · 10 months ago
    that's my part of the world:-)
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    Curt, it most certainly does. You underscore an important piece of my core belief that FriendFeed can very much be what you want it to be to YOU... there is no crime in not participating in "social hour", and I applaud you for using the tool how it makes sense for you.
  • Susan Beebe · 10 months ago
    I also created a room for collecting, organizing and notating recipes! I have about 40 different web sources all dumping in that room and I can try them out, make notes and search....love it
  • vcfreak · 10 months ago
    Usage of a tagging schema to search and sort comments as an application of FriendFeed rooms is an interesting concept which is definitely worth exploring. Thanks for the tip.
  • Brad · 10 months ago
    Timely article, I just set up a FriendFeed room for a small group (12 participants) to exchange (links, ideas) and communicate (replacing e-mail and especially IM) for a 5 month project. Two initial worries concern 1/how to directly contact someone (w/out email, chat); and 2/finding buried posts and comments. For the former, I'll try Twitter DM and for the later I'll definitely try to work out an efficient tagging system. Any thoughts, ideas?
  • Janet Fouts · 10 months ago
    I hadn't thought of using rooms this way. Thanks!
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    Brad, you hit on one of my biggest concerns in FriendFeed. I need a messaging platform, but I would have to guess the FriendFeed dev team doesn't want to become the replacement for most people's use of e-mail and Twitter. I would have to point them to Facebook's use of this type of service, and it really keeps customers inside the ecosystem. As for finding buried posts and comments - a tagging schema (agreed upon by all) is supremely important. The new advanced searches can be very useful. However, ...
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    [cont'd] ... I have found that long term archival of the content is not the primary focus of FriendFeed. For instance, if there is a lot of activity in a given feed eventually this activity will push the content out of reach. This is a minor downside for me, but I have had occasional frustration with not being able to find something I posted a good while back before.
  • Hutch Carpenter · 10 months ago
    Brad - internal messaging option for FriendFeed: http://www.socialdm.com/
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    Thanks for the link Hutch... I will definitely give this a look-see.
  • Brad · 10 months ago
    Ken - I placed the tagging conventions in the groups "Description" for everyone to see. I suggested using the prefix '#' in front of the tag so as to distinguish it from post or comment content -thus, the tag 'link' be '#link' in a search query. Is this a good idea or does anyone see pbs with this? Also, the first link entered leads to FriendFeed advanced search operators. It's imperative that participants master search.
  • Brad · 10 months ago
    Hutch - Thanks for pointing out socialDM. I think it is a solution that could work with some of my early adopter friends and probably most users of FriendFeed. But, the group I will be proposing the FF communications scenario to are 12 students : 3rd year architecture school, who, according to my recent experience, do not venture any further than Facebook in the social media space. A- that's one reason I'm imposing this; but...
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago
    Brad, I would think that is viable and closely matches the twitter hash-tag mechanics. Don't see any problems so long as the process is agreed upon and adhered to.
  • Brad · 10 months ago
    Hutch - but... I think if the DM adds more layers to the process, or entails anything more complex than 'writing the message and clicking send' it will be too cumbersome for people not engaged in the social media space as a part of their workflow.
  • Hutch Carpenter · 10 months ago
    Brad - true. Remove steps to improve usage.
  • patricktrack · 10 months ago
    The more I use friendfeed the more I like it. Three weeks ago I created a room to keep a "log" of everything I read on the web. It's great, I use the bookmarklet to simply add articles and I can find them when I think about them again or they come up in conversation.....I've also created a "reading club" room with colleagues of mine to share articles and converse.
  • opensource · 10 months ago
    t can only be a productivity tool if it helps you produce something -- so if it is helping you produce ideas for your blog I guess it qualifies for you!!
    But It's nice...Thanks
    Keep It Up.!!!!!1
    htpp://opensource.comli.com/blog
  • Jeroen de Miranda · 10 months ago
    good idea to tag using special tagging symbols ([ and ]): good way to search for these tagged items - might be useful for me also
  • jorgeblanco · 10 months ago
    That is a very interesting use of twitter. I will give it a try for sure. It is surprising how many different uses people give these services. Who could imagine such a simple idea would have so much depth to it?
  • maja · 6 months ago
    Hi guys,

    I thought you might be interested in checking a GTD-style online productivity tool we have just launched:

    http://www.littlehacks.com

    You could find it very useful!

    Take care!