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Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

Posted by kdawson on from the friends-indeed dept.

Several readers including carpenter37 let us know that FriendFeed has sold itself to Facebook. Nobody who knows is talking about the terms of the deal. Here is Facebook's announcement, and here is FriendFeed's, which elaborates: "As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle." FriendFeed was founded in 2007 by four ex-Googlers, including Paul Buchheit — the engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google's "Don't be evil" motto — and Bret Taylor, a former group product manager who launched Google Maps.

6 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Bah. by FlyingBishop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm getting really tired of my social interactions carrying on in a walled garden outside of my control.

    Really, I'd be satisfied if they'd just start charging money and quit trying to do data mining on my social life.

    Also quit trying to innovate. I want an easily configurable messaging utility that only allows trusted contacts, and some photo upload and publishing ability (with comments) that piggybacks on the trusted communication. Anything above that is just burning CPU cycles. (Honestly, Facebook is as bad as Slashdot, and if they're making the news feed dynamic, it's going to be even worse.)

    1. Re:Bah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Me too. I think that's what WeOurFamily is trying to do. Private, explicit sharing and no data mining are what attract me to this service-in-beta.

    2. Re:Bah. by Bakkster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I want an easily configurable messaging utility that only allows trusted contacts, and some photo upload and publishing ability (with comments) that piggybacks on the trusted communication.

      Publish your status (tweets) as RSS, upload your photos to flickr, and post your rants on blogspot. That's what we did in the olden days. (Two years ago.)

      RSS doesn't have privacy features.

      Basically, in the last two years, the services have come under one roof. It's a walled garden vs an open platform. Sure, a platform would probably be nicer, but who would develop it? Who would agree on the standards? How frequently would it get updated?

      Honestly, it feels like the walled garden approach wins for flexibility and simplicity.

      --
      Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
  2. full circle by hitchhacker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many social networking sites are we gonna go through before we settle on an open platform? Anybody remember Friendster? Myspace, Orkut, Facebook, Google Reader. Oh, I found a really long list of them.

    I honestly can't believe that Facebook will be worth much considering how many other sites we've already gone through. I'm usually wrong though, so who knows.

    -metric

    1. Re:full circle by hitchhacker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Google Reader is an RSS aggregator, not a social networking site.

      The group of people I currently see sharing content on Google Reader suggests otherwise. It has been moving towards the social aspect for awhile now. eg. Sharing content, commenting, 'liking'. It feels like a precursor to what Google Wave is trying to be.

      -metric

  3. When Google turned to the dark side by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When did he leave Google?

    In 2004 and 2005, Google sponsored the Web Spam Summmit, on how to stop web spam. In 2006 and later, Google sponsored the Search Engine Strategies conference, on how to create web spam. So 2006 is when Google turned to the dark side.