jjprojects: our social web

Today I asked this simple question on Friendfeed:

Is Friendfeed too complicated for mass adoption?

Here are the responses so far:

I’m not so sure. Facebook isn’t that easy to negotiate really, neither is MySpace. – me (jjprojects)

Myspace is slow and a horrid interface. Facebook is not always that direct either. Friendfeed is by far the easiest of the bunch to use – just post and click! – Ian May via fftogo

I think FF is tough to “get” at first, but once you have some friends to follow and you see how others are using it…then, it all makes sense. It’s like jump rope… you have to “jump” into the conversation and see how it goes! I love FF and have enjoyed every minute of it since March 1, 2008 when I signed up! – Susan Beebe (Santa Claus)

Yeah, at first I looked at friendfeed and was overwhelmed. Now i can’t remember what I found so confusing. Perhaps at first glance there was so much to look at/read compared to twitter? I just remember peeking my head in and running away. – Orphan Spinster Librarian

Well, it would seem that way. The more replete the application features, the greater the need for a simple, highly-usable interface up front. – bemyax

I don’t know if the problem is that it is necessarily too complicated. Moreso that to make the most use of it you probably have to be pretty well connected already and using a number of different online services. I think we need to remember more often that a significant proportion of internet users wouldn’t get that much value out of a service like Friendfeed. – Scott Drummond

I think it’s not complicated if you’re already using other networking tools, but as your first point of call yes – then again, you’d be unlikely to start with Friend Feed – - harriet

+1 Scott, you nailed it. Most people on facebook (and myspace etc) don’t even know what *RSS* is! – vijay

I think the usability issues that FF has are minor when compared to its competitors. That said, I also believe it’s the right time for FF to make a serious investment in usability consultants and testing rather than keeping the focus on new functionality. – scott Anderson

You don’t need to know what RSS is to use Friendfeed, you just add most popular services with your username etc. Scott, quite a few people use flickr and youtube, and more and more will be using Twitter. That’s still quite a lot of content coming in. People don’t even need to have a blog or read blogs to use this. – Me (jjprojects)

I’m not saying I think it will happen, or not, just speculating btw :) – Me (jjprojects)

I think a lot of you are missing what magic could happen here, which is just fine, to tell you the truth. It means FriendFeed’s competitors aren’t seeing it yet either. – Robert Scoble

hhm… well from my point of view..as a new user, 48hiurs… I love it here..its a great “acton portal” of what everyone is up to… at first I thought..eh?? took half hour getting to grips with stuff, BUT I do know what RSS is, social media as “we” know it..as a blogger, twitter user, facebook, etc.. have myspace, blogcat.. alsorts..anyway, because of that i could as susan said above makes sense to what i did..just sat back..looked, tried.. learnt… now I aint going anywhere ;o) – Rob Sellen

So…is it hard for the masses? dont know..maybe..if you only used facebook or whatever.. most on there dont even use twitter!.. IF there was a short video with step by step on the page AFTER joining..it may be a help to “them” ;o) if already pretty up to speed with a feed..rss, gonna make more sense quicker. :o) – Rob Sellen

No, it is not too complicated but they haven’t yet mastered the sign up process. There is a magic to these type of networks and they need to make it work upon sign up. FriendFeed needs the magic to happen right after sign up not once you’ve found the right mix of people to follow. They need their equivalent of the starter groups Google Reader offers. – Jmaultasch

you say “mass adoption” like that’s a good thing. ;-) seriously, no, i don’t think it’s too complicated. i think the masses could be potentially confused about the *purpose* of friendfeed — it ostensibly aggregates what your real-life friends publish (hence the name?), but the vast majority of my interactions on friendfeed aren’t with people i know In Real Life. – Karim

likewise most of the purpose seems revolve around intelligent *discussion* of items and not the mere *publishing* of them per se. friendfeed minus the ability to comment isn’t really friendfeed anymore. – Karim

welcome aboard, Rob :-D – Karim

Thank you karim… :o) – Rob Sellen

Not just commenting volume that’s the issue. Friendfeed generates lots and lots to read. Too much for the mainstream, unless we mean mainstream broadsheet addicts. – Ian Fogg

It’s just too geeky. – Rubin Sfadj

OK, I”m not a noob – I’ve been online over 20 years, and work with computers, but I find friendfeed easier, quicker, and more straightforward to use than MySpace or Facebook. My Space really drives me nutso as it takes so long to do anything. – Ian May

myspace…facebook…etc..to many ads..to many other crap slowing it all.. – Rob Sellen

For non-tech users – perhaps. I say perhaps because UI-wise it is not difficult, but on first glance it ‘looks’ confusing due to the mass of information. However, now Facebook, Myspace etc have come into the mainstream we can see that all users of all kinds can learn web UI’s. I’d even say Facebook is more ‘complicated’ to use than Friendfeed. – Mo Kargas

@Rob, at least I don’t get sheep thrown at me in here, and endless requests to join another wall, or play bingo etc. It’s one wall here, a wall of news, information, chat, and sometimes fun, and so easily accessible. – Ian May

I agree…:o) <dodges sheep> ;o) – Rob Sellen

no. There’s nothing complicated about hitting like or leaving a comment. The question though is whether something so niche defined has broader appeal, and I can’t answer that, but I’d side negative. – Duncan Riley

I wish there was more ways to use the data in FriendFeed. Facebook and MySpace have a lot of data about who a person is, which is nice, but FriendFeed has data on what people are doing, which is a whole different piece of the targeting puzzle. Imagine being able to take those two pieces and forming a far more accurate predictive model for determining what will be successful with certain demos or people. FriendFeed is simple at the expense of not being much more than a toy. – Mark Trapp

It’s an advanced web user tool. There is really no reason for your average user/surfer to come here. – Alex C. Williams

No way. It’s just Facebook without the profile. Twitter plus discussion. Not hard stuff. – Meg vM

plus chat, plus rooms(groups), plus lists, plus real-time. – bemyax

I don’t find it more chatty or real-time or groupy than FB. I suppose it’s as complicated as you make it. – Meg vM

I’d respond but I can’t figure out how the comment function works – Cathleen Rittereiser

I don’t think so. It’s fairly easy. I had a learning curve, even learned a couple of things this week. The things that that I can’t figure out/find annoying on FB (mostly add-on apps), I wouldn’t use anyway. I’m not a FB fan. FF is really catching on for me. – BEX

Not that it’s too complicated but do the masses care? I don’t know think this would appeal to them, at least not yet. But it’s still an amazing tool for anyone interested in this community, and I use it everyday. – Rajiv Doshi

I think its something that will get broader uptake, like twitter, over time, when you first arrive at friendfeed its very lonely, but you quickly discover its awesomeness… I would use it over twitter, if all my contacts were connected to me on FriendFeed. – Simon T Small

I think you have to work a bit harder to start getting into conversations here to begin with, more than Twitter and facebook for example. I think sometimes people don’t see beyond the content aggregation here for a while. It seems a bit daunting. It’s very easy to get replies on Twitter right from the get-go. – me (jjprojects)

but on the positive side, friendfeed conversations are much easier to follow and involve many more people, twitter conversations get lost and are only between two people – Simon T Small

It’s pretty addictive once you get going though, especially with the images and video. It’s very compelling, which Dave Winer has been talking about today of course. – Me (jjprojects)