In an effort to better compete with Google and Twitter, Facebook purchases FriendFeed
Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator
Social media, social media, social media. Everyone’s talking about it in some way or another and there is no doubt this conversation will continue to evolve for quite some time. In the meantime, the major players in the online space are working eagerly to sprint ahead of the dialogue and predict the new “must sign-up tool.” Last week, Facebook released that it had bought FriendFeed, a service that allows users to share updates with friends as well as aggregate the updates from other social sites such as Twitter, Gmail or Facebook.
I finally had the opportunity to play around a bit more today with it and saw that this may just be the tool that social networking fans cannot do without. When I first started becoming familiar with Twitter, I thought “who has the time to make these updates, while still checking Facebook, connecting with others on LinkedIn, blogging, G-chatting and all the other factors of everyday-life?” With the functionality on FriendFeed, it appears to be easier to do so with less clicks and time, as all these outside feeds can be streamed together to be used on one platform. In real-time, updates can be made on the site, which looks ironically like Facebook; built with the same options to “comments, share or like.”
Facebook has done very well over the last few years capitalizing on their earning potential. With all the personal information they have access to as well as their massive 250 million user base, advertisers that can afford it are flocking to get in front of the audience they can so accurately target. Now with FriendFeed, they have even more site ad inventory where they can mirror their model. Some have said that Facebook is aspiring to be the next Google. I’m not convinced yet but the idea is possible. Google has a way of diving its hands in anything it can, being an innovator and setting the bar for others in the online industry. But maybe, Facebook is ready to set the bar just a smidge higher in the realm of social. Nevertheless, it’s a constant race and it’s clear Google is taking close watch.
Tags: Facebook, FriendFeed, Social Networking
