FriendFeed

Is Twitter helping FriendFeed?

Twitter usage has grown massively and introduced the idea of micro blogging to millions of people; who use the service primarily to send messages and links to their friends.  FriendFeed, however, offers this and a stack more besides.  Moreover, in my experience it is a lot more reliable too.

Whilst Twitter currently enjoys around 4 times the amount of traffic that FriendFeed does, Twitter is experiencing some serious growing pains and reliability issues, as they struggle to scale their service.

A recent phishing attack fooled unsuspecting Twitter users into parting with their user name and password.  More seriously, hackers exposed Twitter’s security, when they successfully hacked into the accounts of some famous Twitter users, including; US President Obama, Fox News and (shock horror) Britney Spears! Spam has also become a growing problem, as spammers realise the potential of Twitter for reaching people with their crap.

FriendFeed’s major obstacle is itself!

Fortunately for Twitter, new users find FriendFeed notoriously difficult to ‘pick up!’  I believe that had the interface been more intuitive, it would be doing even better right now and gaining a lot more of Twitter’s increasingly frustrated user base.

However, if FriendFeed’s usability improves (significantly) and more people start enjoying the stack of additional features it offers, it’s possible FriendFeed might just start to nibble at Twitters supremacy. It’s going to take a lot of doing though!

By @thetechnewsblog.com
I am a well documented fan of Twitter.  One of the things people often ask me, is a version of the following question;

“What’s the point of Twitter if all you do is tell people what you are having for dinner or what radio station you are listening to?”

I have posted previously on what I love about Twitter, but in this post, I would like to highlight how useful Twitter can be to you as a way to get feedback, answers, recommendations etc.

Twitter now has a massive and diverse user base. This means it has GREAT POTENTIAL as a tool to get feedback on just about anything!

With millions of active users now using Twitter, from just about everywhere on the planet, it’s no surprise to me when I see journalists and people from major news outlets using Twitter for their research.

Earlier this week, Rory Cellen-Jones from the BBC wanted some help and called on Twitter;

“planning to blog about scrabulous but need some apt seven letter words. Suggestions?“

I used Twitter this week to get some feedback on the new design of this blog and got some comments from some really helpful web designers, web users, podcasters and even a few well-known tech celebrities!.

Other uses for Twitter?

Robert Scoble is one of the smartest users of Twitter. He uses it for everything from; PR, communication and marketing – to research, information gathering and even a little micro-blogging!

Twitter can either be extremely useful or a total waste of time.  In the end, what YOU get from it is always going to be a reflection of what you put into it.

If you are a Twitter user or you are thinking about joining, give me a shout or follow me: - my username is @thetechnewsblog.com

What is Twitter? www.twitter.com
Twitter is a free micro blogging service that runs on your computer, your phone or palm device. It allows users to share information, links etc with other Twitter users; via a 140 character text limit. This makes messages (called tweets) short and to the point – ideal for ‘micro-blogging’.

I am a regular Twitter user and use it mainly as a way to keep in touch with friends, contacts and even a few of the people I blog about. I have also met stacks of great new people via Twitter - it’s just such a great little service. My most recent follower on Twitter is none other than Garnett Lee from the superb gaming site 1UP.com.

Want to know more?
For some general information on what Twitter is and what it does, take a look at this review from The Soft Tech Reviews Blog – Click here!

If you would like to know how to use Twitter to get traffic to your website or blog - Read Gregor’s excellent blog post – Click here!

- – UPDATE – -

If you are already a Twitter member, my user name is @thetechnewsblog you can find me here – come and say hello!  Also – read this “What’s Patrick Norton’s Twitter name?”

Lifehacker
http://lifehacker.com
Lifehacker is a superb website; all about; “tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done!”

GigaOm
http://gigaom.com
Om Malik’s superb blog is considered by many to be one of the best tech news blogs available. It delivers news, analysis and opinions on everything from web 2.0 and who’s buying who – to broadband and game reviews, Established in 2006, the blog and it’s associated sites already have over one and a half million people reading them each month.

Twitter
http://twitter.com
This micro-blogging service is superb.  I use it, I like it and I recommend it!  The magic of Twitter is that it’s extremely simple to use and highly valuable.  Valuable?  Well, I have used Twitter to get answers to ‘tech problems,’ I have used it to ‘poll people’ for research and I have used it to drive traffic to this blog (all in the past 60 minutes!)  Need I say more?

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