On Friday the FriendFeed founders Bret Taylor and Paul Buchheit debuted a radical redesign of the product for about 15 journalists, technologists, and Robert Scoble. We were asked not to discuss the details until Monday morning at 9AM Pacific. I’ve been playing with the beta for the last few hours and have already come to several conclusions about what this means for the social media community and by extension enterprise computing.
First, the disruption occurring around the realtime universal message bus invented by Twitter has now spread much more widely than commonly anticipated. Twitter’s breakout in the mainstream media hints at the speed with which this technology is moving, as does Dave WIner’s fascination with harnessing Twitter while at the same time questioning the validity of a single commercial company’s dominance of the space.
Some analysts have suggested that Twitter has moved past and consumed RSS at the center of the information machine. As newspapers and other print vehicles appear to collapse, the common concerns expressed about the permanent loss and funding of the fourth estate ignore the rise of a superclass of information creation. What some call the fallow ego-driven spew of the Warholian elites is more likely to be seen in the rear view mirror as something more akin to body painting and ultimately jazz.
Without directly violating the embargo, what FriendFeed 2.0 suggests is the capture of the sense of the moment. Like a Kennedy press conference or the incredible rhythm trills of Lennon on the roof in Get Back, we’re seeing something electric and tangible appearing out of nothing. I dive in and swim in the current, swooping from swirl to eddy, then into direct communication and back to the world I’ve left behind for a moment. It still takes several moves to accomplish a single task, but the handwriting is on the wall and the time is near when we can pick up where we left off months ago.
What’s exhilirating is that the vague assumptions, arrogant exploits, twinkling of an ephemeral joke, they all are being ratified in a swirl of innovation that is dazzling in its ability to masquerade as superficial and childish. How strange it is to see major corporations act like teenagers while jousting for position in the transition. The dynamics of cloud computing have unleashed a paroxysm of hardball for control of the big freakin’ webtone switch, with the phrase’s inventor reportedly facing off against his successor to protect his legacy.
Whether the drama is real or window dressing for a nuts and bolts takeover is not so much the point, just as tweeting was never about what you’re doing for breakfast. What’s more truthful is that moment when someone has that flash of insight and dives through the wormhole to the moment when the like-minded take it for a ride. Like a comedy preview, when the laughs fall in the right places and the audience syncs up with the story and is carried away, so too does this realtime message bus become an irresistible force of nature.
We’re seeing a new Beatles emerging in this new morning of creativity, a series of devices and software constructs that empower us with both the personal meaning of our lives and the intuitive combinations of serendipity and found material and the sturdiness that only rigorous practice brings. The ideas and sculpture, the rendering of this supple brine, we’ll stand in awe of it as it is polished to a sparkling sheen. This is not a beta period, though each element is maturing rapidly. It’s a wave of Sully’s guiding each ship to a safe landing.
This embargo is a gift, letting us feel the raised lettering on the white cover, pouring over the vibrant dissolution of one era and the brisk tart smell of the air as we start the day. What a delicious feeling, the sense of limitless possibilities even as we know everything will end only to begin again. Over and over, we hear the same wondrous realization, that building has this incredible stage where you get something roughed out and then stand back and let it tell you what it might be.
I recorded the entire session and will have it up at about 9 a.m. Pacific Time at http://scobleizer.blip.tv (there are six pieces so I can get the whole thing up on HD video).
Scoble: it *sucks* to be pointed to a link that starts a video and spitting sound to my headphones without having to press “start”. kktnxbye
is this a belated April Fools post?
remember that magical thing called Worldwide Telescope that Scoble said “made me cry”?
Ha. You guys need to get your head out of Google’s cloud….
I loved reading this article, so rich with imagery! =) Thank you. @AndreaTannouri the @HolisticMamma
I didn’t love reading this article, I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
And besides, Arrington made it very clear that embargos are crap, and should never be respected.
Just tell us what the heck you know! Stop trying to be an artist!
I am a new fan (of yours). Beautifully written in a way that I didn’t know you could write. Artful, technological prose.
Wrong. It is an awful article. It is very unclear and vague. Can anyone translate this rubbish into a plain English?
Agreed. I’m afraid Steve’s brain operates on a higher plane to mine. I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.
Hi Steve,
Interesting writing style. Very much departed from that of other writers on this blog.
However, it is clear that some of your readers may not know that “fourth estate” in “the common concerns expressed about the permanent loss and funding of the fourth estate” refers to “the fourth estate of the realm” i.e. journalists/press. It is antiquated English, after all.
That aside, I reckon this paragraph really threw a lot of people off
“What’s exhilirating is that the vague assumptions, arrogant exploits, twinkling of an ephemeral joke, they all are being ratified in a swirl of innovation that is dazzling in its ability to masquerade as superficial and childish. How strange it is to see major corporations act like teenagers while jousting for position in the transition. The dynamics of cloud computing have unleashed a paroxysm of hardball…”
You have to understand that TC is a quick-read for several people and not bed-time reading. Some people just don’t have time to read articles twice to understand the meaning, hence the vitriol spouted in the comments.
Don’t take it personal. Just take the advice on board
Niyi
This article makes very little sense.
What an overblown, florid, self-indulgent piece of hyperbolic BS!
Eric: here’s the transcription:
New friendfeed coming in the morning at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.
It’s new.
Shiny.
And takes the microblogging world forward in a compelling new way.
Brilliant Scoble, you just made my afternoon!
Is it going to help or hinder those of us that use Microblogging in a mobile way? To we need even more powerful devices with even bigger screens?
We already do need more powerful devices with better memory management…
Thanks. Makes much more sense.
The new Friendfeed system goes online on April 6, 2009 at 9:00am PDT. Friendfeed begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14am PDT, April 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug…
“I dive in and swim in the current, swooping from swirl to eddy, then into direct communication and back to the world I’ve left behind for a moment. ”
That was a beautiful sentence, captures the essence like no technical spec ever can.
And you make a wonderful point about the embargo, never heard it being spoken of that way.
Wonderful post….thanks!
I am reminded of Mischke: http://bit.ly/IT6ob
FriendFeed is already yesterday’s news.
Robert I expect you will move onto the next thing by the pm.
Will be hard to get the attention of the mainstream away from Twitter. Will they change their name to something cool???
I have no idea what any of this article means. It makes no sense.
yeah me too.
Standing by, on the ready, T minus 5 hrs and counting…
I am wondering when 75% of access to twitter and friend feed come from mobile smartphones that have web browsers who this new twitter real-time bus will affect LBS consumer mobile applications.
Seems to me that the Mobile Hybrid solution of using one mobile framework such as rhomobile to allow app to be dev using web code while still being able to access gps might be the best play for some twitter like service start ups.
I think the next Twitter if there is such a thing will be integrated with GPS/LBS.
The Friendfeed IM interface is the closest mobile experience I’ve had to the old Twitter realtime IM with Track and the easiest to send threaded comments while on the move.
The-next-big-thing is coming at us today, apparently, and the thing after that will come at us in a few months, and the one after that in a few weeks, and the time between each next-big-thing will keep decreasing, until there is a next-big-thing coming at us about as fast as microblog posts come at us now. And I’m exhausted already.
Ouch! Even Gillmor doesn’t think Scoble is a journalist or a technologist.
Heh, that’s what I got out of it too. :)
Wow Mr. Gillmor, I’ll second the comment that I didn’t know you could write like that. Very well done and inspired. You could write excellent mystery novels (this is a complement). And thank goodness somebody else remembers The Beatles! Check out “Revolution Take 20″. – kc
Steve Gilmor on Techmeme? What is this? “Only the beginning” indeed!
Wait, I thought Techcrunch no longer honored embargoes….
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/death-to-the-embargo/
Exactly what I thought. TechCrunch, bad at obeying their own rules.
My thought as well. I was hoping someone was going to mention that.
I too need more to make sense of this post. It’s beautifully written indeed, but where’s the beef? What on earth does it mean? Where’s my link to more…
You’ve succeeded in creating curiosity and I’m anxious to figure it out, so all-in-all, brilliant post indeed.
So what, Steve is using ghost writers recruited from the pool of unemployed Bush administration speech writers?
Steve
Did you just seriously compare a website user interface iteration to a “Kennedy press conference”?!?!
Unreadable and self-indulgent nonsense once again from Steve Gillmor.
Aside from baroque loveliness, why exactly is this announcement important?
I’ve been experimenting on how to keep Twitter and Facebook separate, but Scoble’s twitter stream is basically FriendFeed now, and I don’t want that to happen with my stream. I’m actually excited to see what FriendFeed is going to offer! T-1.5 hrs!
The whole point of communication is to deliver a message. You sir, failed.
Ok I just listened to several different versions of Get Back by the Beatles, and there was no trilling.
You guys here at tech crunch dont actually have any fact checkers do you?
Thanks Robert for the reminder about when and where the new release will appear. I was getting lost in the Warholian hyperbole. It was a nice reading any way :)
Thanks for the announce.
I feel like I just watched the final episode of Battlestar Galactica with the Beatles playing Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack while they were watching the Wizard of Oz.
But on that note, I can’t wait to see what this wormhole all means.
What a fantastic post. Fairly sure this is the first time I’ve read a tech related blog post that included references to The Beatles Apple rooftop “last show.” Well done.
Steve Gillmor needs an editor.
This is a windy and pretentious posting for something about which we know nothing. An editor would moderate the writer’s ego and need to pee first on the fire hydrant.
Steve, Lovely fan dance. But didn’t the raised lettering on the white cover herald a moment of dissolution, the instant when the utopian dream turned into all-too-human bickering and recrimination? Everything afterwards, Beatleswise, was kind of a letdown, wasn’t it? Nick
I’ll bet you meant “disillusion”, as in “I was disillusioned by …”.
“Dissolution” means “being dissolved”, which could work but it’s a stretch.
W T F is he talking about can someone translate this piece of BS into English?
Rubish. This artcle is complete rubbish.
i remember reading an arrington-impassioned case for saying screw the embargos not too long ago. why the change of heart?
Groovy shit – but i wonder what this will mean to the quasi-real time (neartime) ecology currently tethered to twitter. Could memes evolve from loosely-coupled eddies of free flowing information and grow into larger whirlpools of semisynergistic distributed strands of structured data?
Will stay posted…
I’m not sure I get what you (or Steve for that matter) mean – but I think Steve was just saying that he’s really excited about a friendfeed redesign. I don’t know where you get “semi-structured distributed data” from.
Wow, looks like this blog has gone down hill since Michael stopped writing.
For a moment there I thought it was some type of automatically created for FriendFeed.
Maybe a point would be nice, or a reference to exactly how the new FriendFeed works/looks? How about commentary on the author’s thoughts about microblogging rather than all this waffle that goes nowhere. I think I’ve seen less backtracks and turnarounds in a Joel Splotsky post.
‘Waffle’ is too kind.
This post should be entered in one of the bad-writing contests. It could be a contender.
Seriously, this is indulgent writing at nearly its worst.
Interestingly, my comment should have read “some type of automatically created *s p a m* created for FriendFeed”, it appears that the comment system removes that naughty(???) word.
I thinks scoble is the only person who uses friendfeed
As usual, garbage. This is a clear example of someone thinking they are more qualified to do their job than they are.
How do you have an article on a new friendfeed which mentions the competion (twitter) more times than the company you’re touting? How do you write an article on a subject which has no context for those reading to understand?
I’ll tell you what this means for the “social media community and by extension enterprise computing”… absolutely nothing until at least 12PM EST. Even then I doubt it’ll be of any benefit.
Now that we’ve read Leena Rao’s posting about the FriendFeed UI changes, writing like this…
“We’re seeing a new Beatles emerging in this new morning of creativity, a series of devices and software constructs that empower us with both the personal meaning of our lives and the intuitive combinations of serendipity and found material and the sturdiness that only rigorous practice brings. The ideas and sculpture, the rendering of this supple brine, we’ll stand in awe of it as it is polished to a sparkling sheen.”
…is sheer rubbish and peer-preening.
I read this post in awe of the beauty of the web and the surreal talent of the writer. By the middle of the post, I wept openly. Then I choked my dog for not being as flowery a writer as this guy.
How I long for a service that can capture the ethereal moment when the dog’s essence passed from his lungs, through my hands, to eternity — an eternity none of us knows yet all of us possesses. Perhaps if Friendfeed 2.0 had existed just minutes before my eyes grazed the supple prose of this nurturing post, I would have found sweet release in the delicate flower of their new-age tweet. And my sweet partner pooch would still grace the contours of our gentle and violent earth.
Oh well. Off to the pet store for a replacement.
Hahaha this is the worst article I’ve ever read in my life – how old is the writer though? If he’s less than 12 we’ll give him a break.
“i remember reading an arrington-impassioned case for saying screw the embargos not too long ago. why the change of heart?”
Right hand not talking to the left.
I dislike the pros of this article. very annoying.
This is one of Gillmor’s better efforts. The gap I have trouble jumping over is the ??? step where we somehow aggregate 140-character tweets into a wondrous form of ant-colony insight.
The irony of the Gillmor post is that it is precisely this sort of communication that couldn’t possibly be enhanced or augmented by a cloud of tweets.
This was the cheesiest piece of trite that has ever been posted on this site. What a load of crap.
I thought TechCrunch has sworn off all embargoes?
Indeed of the 2 crowds the poets and the efficient communicators, I stick with the latest.
anyway it may still be true that sthg interesting is appearing just… now. Agree with Eric: irony has that Gillmor litterary style goes against hard rigourous discipline of short & to the point.
Remember Mark Twain “sorry for this long letter I did not have [/take] time to write you a short one”.
I thought Tom Wolfe had written this.
So rich in … well, something.
My favorite riff: “the incredible rhythm trills of Lennon on the roof in Get Back.”
“15 journalists, technologists, and Robert Scoble”..
does this mean Scoble is neither a journalist nor a technologist?
Haha. That was my favorite part of the article. Nice subtle dig!
i hate gillmor’s articles.
please make it stop. it makes me want to avoid TC.
This is a great ripping apart of Steve’s guff.
http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/04/06/new-friendfeed-is-coming-its-the-future/
By a far more talented writer.
No. Not really.
My father, along with millions of others, is on the verge of losing a pension he’s worked his entire life for and you imbeciles are erupting over a slightly newer way to tell your friends you have no life.
Touché, Chris Weagel.