FriendFeed: Now I get it

Brian Dillard, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 @ 12:11 pm

I first encounted the social-data aggregation service FriendFeed back when it was in beta. I didn't get it. At the time, I wasn't generating or consuming a lot of attention data. I couldn't really understand the value of a service that sucked up all my photos, blog posts and other ephemera into a single activity stream.

Now, though, the service has matured - and I have entered the fray on a range of social networks, from Flickr to Tumblr. Suddenly, FriendFeed makes sense. It's a single URL to hand out to my friends and a central place to track the activities of those friends.

FriendFeed also has a nascent API. I've been playing with it a lot over the past several weeks, specifically the unauthenticated JavaScript API, which offers client-side develpers quick, down-and-dirty JSONP access to public feeds. Sure, I could embed my own personal FriendFeed stream into my personal homepage with a readymade widget, but it's a lot more fun to build something myself.

My experience with the JavaScript API has been positive, but I find myself frustrated by the differences between the API data and the info that shows up in my actual feed on the FriendFeed site. A FriendFeed item such as "posted an entry on Agile Ajax" turns into a generic "blog" item in the JSON stream. This has inspired me to develop a jQuery plugin to help users hack their own FriendFeed stream and easily customize the data before embedding it into their pages. I plan to release my alpha code as an open source project soon. My hope is that other FriendFeed enthusiasts will pick up the torch and make it into a community effort. Look for an announcement next week.

In the meantime, FriendFeed has entered its hyped-up phase thanks to enthusiastic early adopters who see it as a cross between Twitter and Open Social. If you haven't given it a shot, check out these tips for getting the most out of FriendFeed.

Related posts:

1. FriendFeed, Jaiku and Plaxo Pulse: Networks within networks
2. Web 2.0 context menus vs. Web 1.0 link lists: Style over usability?
3. Getting things done with Flock and Meebo
4. Multiple Column Sorting with Drag and Drop using Scriptaculous
5. Flex Widget for Graphing Elections and Debt

Comments (2)

Software Development

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1. 

   Have you released your jQuery plugin?

   Comment by Howard Keziah, Friday, July 25, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

2. 

   Did you make any progress with your jQuery plugin for friendfeed? I’d certainly like to see it.

   Comment by Howard, Sunday, July 27, 2008 @ 1:53 pm

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