Friendfeed continues to astonish me. While so much attention is focused on Twitter lately, particularly by the press, Friendfeed is the little site that could. And quietly it's poised to become the next great blogging platform.
Don't believe me? Then keep an eye on what Robert Scoble is up to on Friendfeed. Like him or hate him, he's a trend setter.
A few times a day he will post thoughts on Friendfeed, often followed by the phrase "here's why" and then he'll expand on it with the first comment. These little thoughts generate hundreds of subsequent comments, often in minutes plus lots of "likes."
Yesterday I essentially blogged on Friendfeed on this topic and generated a level of engagement you just don't see anywhere else - with the exception of Twitter. But I find Twitter increasingly frustrating because the conversation is so hard to follow. These days, I would rather post to Friendfeed and let Twitter scoop it all up. I love that I can more easily follow the conversation, moderate it and contribute to it via IM. Also, I l can add photos to my Friendfeed postings, which brings in even more people.
It seems to me that if Friendfeed adds a few features - longer posts, custom domains, and design tweaks - it's basically a blogging platform... on steroids. It will be attractive to bloggers for at least two reasons.
First, we will be able to use it to build a branded presence (and thus SEO) just as we can now with TypePad or Wordpress. This is something you can't do now on Friendfeed - or Twitter for that matter.
However, more importantly, we will be able to instantly plug our full blog posts right into a fervent, real-time community that attracts a highly engaged audience. It's blogging on speed thanks to the real-time web. Why try to get the conversation to come to your site when you can go to it?
I also think that Friendfeed can add an optional Adsense program make it easy for people to monetize their Friendfeed blogs.
Stay tuned.
