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FriendFeed is shutting down

blog.friendfeed.com

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Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#31

Post by bbgm »

chrisamiller wrote: post #24
bbgm wrote: post #17

We had a wonderful, thriving life science community [1] on Friendfeed, which we have not been able to replicate since. Some of that crowd even published a paper about it [2]. Most of the original crowd left sometime after the FB acquisition. While many of us hang out on Twitter, it's not the same thing). ---- 1. http://friendfeed.com/the-life-scientists 2. http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jou.…

I miss that interface and community. Even if FriendFeed was still around, though, I wonder if it would be as popular. That group contained the early adopters of internet communication among scientists, a movement that has now grown exponentially. My guess is that the signal would be overwhelmed by noise, or broken down into sub-groups by specialty, which would overwhelm the delightful serendipity of it all.

Great question. No idea. The other thing to note is that a lot of the people who were involved then have moved on to other things and probably could not stay as involved (pointing at myself). It remains the best time I've had online.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#32

Post by bdarnell »

nailer wrote: post #15
bootload wrote: post #4

best thing to come out of friendfeed, Tornado. I remember asking Bret Taylor on his blog [0] when he gave a Tornado example if he'd ever release it. A bit of time went by, then he did. [1] Thanks Bret. [0] http://backchannel.org/blog/tornado [1] https://friendfeed.com/friendfeed-news/9b8fbaed/technology-b...

Goddamn Tornado was/is the best Python HTTP server ever. Asides from the wide utility library of non-blocking IO (years before node got popular) it had Sinatra-style class based routing that was far simpler than django's bizarre route.as_route() stuff. A friend once said the worst thing about Tornado was how little publicity it got.

Why all the "was/is" in this subthread? Tornado's not going anywhere.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#33

Post by chrisamiller »

bbgm wrote: post #31
chrisamiller wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss that interface and community. Even if FriendFeed was still around, though, I wonder if it would be as popular. That group contained the early adopters of internet communication among scientists, a movement that has now grown exponentially. My guess is that the signal would be overwhelmed by noise, or broken down into sub-groups by specialty, which would overwhelm the delightful serendipity of it all.

Great question. No idea. The other thing to note is that a lot of the people who were involved then have moved on to other things and probably could not stay as involved (pointing at myself). It remains the best time I've had online.

I'm with you there. I had a lot more free time in grad school than I do now (both personally and professionally). Judging from the updates I see on twitter and blogs, most of that core group has gone on to bigger, better, more time-consuming things.

I wonder if the kids these days are using snapchat to complain about how we're all dinosaurs. :)

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#34

Post by nailer »

bdarnell wrote: post #32
nailer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goddamn Tornado was/is the best Python HTTP server ever. Asides from the wide utility library of non-blocking IO (years before node got popular) it had Sinatra-style class based routing that was far simpler than django's bizarre route.as_route() stuff. A friend once said the worst thing about Tornado was how little publicity it got.

Why all the "was/is" in this subthread? Tornado's not going anywhere.

Only reason I wrote 'is/was' because it's been a couple of years since I used Tornado and other Python HTTP servers might have gotten better. I hack node all day now.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#35

Post by yinhm »

wslh wrote: post #27

How can I export my data? I know there is an API but it will be incredible useful to have a link to download everything. Google Reader had an option to export your data when they closed their web service.

There is a backup tool on github[1], I use it exported my feed when a saw the news.

[1] https://github.com/zverok/clio

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#36

Post by pekk »

nailer wrote: post #15
bootload wrote: post #4

best thing to come out of friendfeed, Tornado. I remember asking Bret Taylor on his blog [0] when he gave a Tornado example if he'd ever release it. A bit of time went by, then he did. [1] Thanks Bret. [0] http://backchannel.org/blog/tornado [1] https://friendfeed.com/friendfeed-news/9b8fbaed/technology-b...

Goddamn Tornado was/is the best Python HTTP server ever. Asides from the wide utility library of non-blocking IO (years before node got popular) it had Sinatra-style class based routing that was far simpler than django's bizarre route.as_route() stuff. A friend once said the worst thing about Tornado was how little publicity it got.

What did you think about Twisted?

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#37

Post by demachina »

beolab1700 wrote: post #19
wojciechpolak wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was much better for me than Twitter, but once the acquisition happened (FB w/ a rumored $50M), they decided to show the middle finger to its users. Isn't this the same as what happened to the thesixtyone (t61)?

They kept the service running for more than five years after the aqui-hire. I wouldn't call that showing the middle finger.

I suspect he was referring to the FriendFeed founders giving their user community the middle finger by cashing out to Zuck. People are going to do what is in their own self interest so you can’t exactly blame the founders for that.

As I recall FriedFeed’s growth had plateaued so they probably figured it wasn’t going to compete with FB and Twitter. Mobile and apps were also starting to take the world then too.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#38

Post by jimminy »

andrea_sdl wrote: post #5

I personally hate when services let people down. I prefer a much more "future oriented" approach much like the one from Basecamp https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3830-ta-da-list-until-the-end... or the idea behind https://posthaven.com/ I guess it's all about vision and how to delight your customers. All the people who believed in a product are people who trusted your words, and gave you access to a lot of their inform…

I don't feel let down at all. I was one of the most active users prior to the acquisition, and and still an active member of the site.

It was an inevitability, that the site would shrink, and that FB would either decide it couldn't continue to fund a small community or the handful of employees would decide to depart.

Currently, there are only 3 members of the team working at FB, and I have a feeling a few of them have decided to move on which has precipitated the closure.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#39

Post by nailer »

pekk wrote: post #36
nailer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goddamn Tornado was/is the best Python HTTP server ever. Asides from the wide utility library of non-blocking IO (years before node got popular) it had Sinatra-style class based routing that was far simpler than django's bizarre route.as_route() stuff. A friend once said the worst thing about Tornado was how little publicity it got.

What did you think about Twisted?

Twisted was focused on general sockets apps rather than HTTP, and for some reason had code written using a styleguide different from the rest of the Python ecosystem.

Tornado OTOH was very HTTP focused. It also had a bunch of useful examples maintained in the actual repo so they were always up to date.

Re: FriendFeed is shutting down

#40

Post by on_and_off »

bbgm wrote: post #17

We had a wonderful, thriving life science community [1] on Friendfeed, which we have not been able to replicate since. Some of that crowd even published a paper about it [2]. Most of the original crowd left sometime after the FB acquisition. While many of us hang out on Twitter, it's not the same thing). ---- 1. http://friendfeed.com/the-life-scientists 2. http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jou.…

That's where the 'nobody is on [insert social network name other than fb/twitter]' argument fails. There are always some communities that form around these websites for a variety of reasons . For example google plus has got some early success with photograpers, probably because its photo viewing experience was way ahead of the competition at the time.

It is always a pity to see such a space disappear.

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