The Inquisitr - Latest Comments in Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

StevenHodson — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:18:41 -0000

thanks .. Lindsey S got a hold of me on FF and smacked me around for my mistake (j/k) I've since corrected the error and added her FF link

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

jorgeblanco — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:10:22 -0000

The new friendfeed has many issues to handle... I can't beleive they called this out of beta... I is true that there are some new improvements that are nice to have, but definitely not at the cost of loosing everything they took away. especially since now it is not an option to have the classic interface. Didn't we all learn from the Facebook fiasco? Leaving your users without a choice is never the best option. Facebook rehashed its policies just to give users a choice... why can't we have a choice of interface wit FF? I don't know. I hope this gets better soon

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Isha — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:36:47 -0000

I should have added in my comment above: anyone who manages to create something that I can use that is exactly like the old Realtime mini-window please let me know about it. Friendfeed user @eddale has over 5,600 subscribers to his Friendfeed, and he taught us how to use the mini-window to great effect - most of us were using it. FF realtime mini-window RIP.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Isha — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:07:36 -0000

Excellent article.

I'd like to add just one thing: I used to go to the standard Friendfeed pages when I wanted to catch up (and like you I find the enforced "realtime" version stinks), and then I'd click on the "Realtime" link & then click on the "Mini-window" link. That way, I could have a coupla mini-windows of a coupla my FF list feeds open on the right of my computer screen, & do something else in the rest of the screen. Whenever there was a new addition or comment or like added to the two feeds, I'd notice out the corner of my eye.

I changed my whole work pattern & subscriptions as a result of this feature, & it was a great feature to have. It was widely praised. And now it's gone. In one day. Without notice. Friendfeed has just killed something that they gave great fanfare to & that got them lots of praise.

And guess what - I can't change my subscriptions back to what they were without taking days over it, because the new FF is so difficult to use.

Nil points Friendfeed. This could just be the beginning of your end.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:31:43 -0000

I would think that a passionate user would be more likely to turn into a passionate non-user, rather than an indifferent user. But I could be wrong.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:30:18 -0000

Chris, one potential issue is that according to Benjamin, work on the API is still in progress, thus delaying any moves for an new third party UI. Benjamin's own fftogo doesn't yet take advantage of the new features.

Incidentally, for those who are primarily upset about the real-time updates, give fftogo a try and see if it's better for you.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Webomatica — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:21:06 -0000

Your last paragraphs have me pondering a larger subject to explore - what turns a passionate user into just a user?

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Mark Wilson — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:01:03 -0000

Excellent article Steven. It's like the FF Development Team lost their minds. I see a lot of self-congratulatory posts coming from Bret lately. Oh well, whatever. I'm not about to lose any more time or energy worrying about what's happening. In the grand scheme of my life, this is small potatoes.

P.S. The mockup was done by Lindsey S (aka Lindsey is Fierce) not Lindsey D.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Shey — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:40:14 -0000

Your points are spot on Steven, but I don't really miss the service icons

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Patricia Elizabeth — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:15:42 -0000

Point of clarification:: That mockup wasn't done by Lindsay D. She put out the call for people to make mockups, that's true. But that mockup was done by Lindsey S.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

mcwflint MaryannChickWhiteside — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:59:52 -0000

Yeah for getting more things done. Your post echoed so many of my feelings. I don't understand why folks ask for feedback and ignore all of it.

I find I use FF more as a local bar now - drop in when 'spare time' and 'banter time intersect.' But then we get what we pay for, don't we?

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

krishnamoorthy — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:53:04 -0000

As for the user interface is concerned, I am using the scrip given in :

http://friendfeed.com/amitp...

It removes the ugly Gray BG!

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

StevenHodson — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:14:02 -0000

I've spent more time getting things done plus I've been taking a serious look at what Live.com and the interesting stuff they are doing in the social media sphere and lifestreaming

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

spragued — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:51:04 -0000

If their churn rate shoots up because of the weird design choices, they'll react. Perhaps they think real time will be a differentiator for them. Maybe, but aside from a small population of hardcore users, I can't think who will invest the time to make the new design work for them. I sure as hell won't. I've already noticed I'm spending more time on Twitter since the FF beta started.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

StevenHodson — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:30:11 -0000

I agree with you Chris and it doesn't bode well for Friendfeed in my opinion. Even if they gave the option to switch between this stupid ass real time display and the previous refresh time frame as well as return the Source Icons I could live with the gawd awful design. I'd probably still find things that irritated me but those two things are pissing me right off

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Chris Charabaruk — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:30:43 -0000

Steven, you hit the nail right on the head with this article. I'm really surprised that the FF team went and took the beta live when they did, especially with no notice. There's still a lot of feedback coming in from users about the beta, and for them to pretty much say "it's done, here it is" the way they did is exceptionally ballsy (and not in a good way).

Unfortunately, I don't see Paul, Benjamin, & co. reversing their position here. It's got me considering making my own frontend for FriendFeed, and even with me pulling my hair out trying to get my own service up and running. I really enjoy some of the changes with the beta, but a lot of them just leave me thinking "WTF" and wishing for the old site back.

Hopefully the FF team will finally pay attention to these complaints and fix things, rather than leave it as-is. But considering how many of these issues have been raised since the beginning of the beta period (without even a peep from the developers) I don't really see it happening, unfortunately.

Re: Taking a hammer to Friendfeed

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:40:15 -0000

Interestingly enough, and this is something I considered doing today - someone familiar enough with the API could create an interface that worked exactly like the old version of the site, allowing for posting and reading of FF in the old style.