The Story behind Facebook’s Acquisition of Friendfeed

by Andrew Ran Wong on August 10, 2009

Facebook+Friendfeed VS TwitterIt’s been officially confirmed by both companies that the world’s largest social network company Facebook is acquiring the social media feed aggregation site FriendFeed.  What does this all mean?  Well, according to Robert Scoble, coauthor of the book “Naked Conversation” and a strong advocate for Friendfeed, “(It’s) a huge win for both companies.

If you are an average social network user, chances are you probably haven’t heard of FriendFeed.  As a Friendfeed user, you can set up an account and then integrate all of your different social media sites, such as your Wordpress blog, your twitter feed, or the story you’ve voted on Digg.  According to Friendfeed, “It’s a service that makes it easy to share with friends online. It offers a fun and interactive way to discover and discuss information among friends.”

Earlier this year, Facebook has emulated some of Friendfeed’s killer features, such as the ability to “like” items, and the real-time news stream.  It seemed like the relationship between these two sites goes way back.  With this acquisition, Facebook apparently wants to employ more of Friendfeed’s killer functions so it can keep Twitter at bay in this “Social Meida War.”

Currently, Friendfeed has an excellent search engine, which allows its users to search for content from their friends anyway they want.  On contrary, the search engine on Facebook only allows you to search for friends, pages, and groups, very limited.

In any case, this acquisition may work for the best interests for both companies, but it leaves the future uncertain for Friendfeed’s current users.  As former Friendfeed executives are now employed by Facebook, will the Friendfeed service be discontinued?  Facebook will, without a doubt, become more powerful as a result of this acquisition.  Its battle with Twitter in the future still remains to be seen.  Please share your thoughts and opinions about the acquisition in the commenting area below.

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  • Good stuff Andrew - a man with his finger on the pulse and a fascinating summary. I'll be visiting again!
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