The flood of new content on the Internet is definitely exciting. We are pulling our media in smaller bits (and on demand) rather than having it pushed out to us by scheduled broadcasts.
But have you noticed that the more you do online, the harder it is to talk about with your friends? Remember when we used to all watch Seinfeld on Thursday nights, and then go to work on Friday to talk about the new episode around the water cooler?
At the water cooler, someone would say, “hey, did you see…?” And we would talk about it. We would add interesting personal anecdotes, and segue freely to other things we were interested in. Every time we brought up a new item in the conversation, we were producing (or better said, re-producing) content. We were offering up something for our listeners to consume, and giving them the chance to participate (by adding their experience, disagreeing, or high fiving, whatever..). But we did so from our shared experience of scheduled broadcasts.
As the flood of new online/on-demand media continues, it can feel impossible to recapture the water cooler experience. Whether we find content on YouTube, our favourite blog, a forum discussion, a news item, a photo, or simply some web page, how do we do the water cooler thing? If we try to talk about it at work (like we did Seinfeld), we have to repeat or summarize the content for context. Over and over again! We can’t assume that our listeners (consumers) have seen what we want to talk about. What about family and friends we don’t work with? What if we telecommute? What about new online communities?
And, just in case it’s not clear, it was the water cooler that made Seinfeld successful at all. In the same way, all this groovy new exciting Internet content gets practically all its value from us: our mentioning it, and our discussing it meaningfully. So how do we do that now?
Sharing platforms to the rescue.
You’re probably very familiar with one platform already: Facebook. It’s pretty good. …and pretty bad. It actually can be more than just a rolodex + a silly waste of time. (Personally, I have tried to use it primarily as a platform to update friends about what I’m doing online.) But, it has a drawback. It is very much USER-focused, rather than CONTENT-focused. It’s all about my profile. Me. Pictures of me. My favourite TV shows. And my favourite quotes.
FriendFeed, on the other hand, is all about content, and discussion. (It is only about the user inasmuch as you trust someone enough to follow the content they produce.) It has been around for about a year, slowly building a committed user base. It is being built by the people who brought us GMail, Google Maps and other popular Google apps. It is both simple to use, and very powerful. Like most powerful apps, it can be a little overwhelming (so take your time not to throw the baby out with the bath water).
So, how do you use it? There are 2 ways:
- You produce content:
You create an account, and then “hook it up” to your other social accounts (such as Facebook, Twitter, your blog, your YouTube account, your Flickr, your last.fm, and many many many many more), and then you go about your social way — twittering, blogging, fav’ing on YouTube, etc.. Basically, you create content for people to consume at the water cooler.
- You consume content:
You follow people who are doing the same thing as producers. You comment on their shares. You can “like” stuff (ie, “vote up”). You can divide streams into various lists (to avoid overload perhaps), or aggregate it into rooms.
And, if you just want to just consume, that’s okay too. It’s kind of like showing up at the water cooler and never saying a thing. For some people, that’s their comfort zone. Whenever they want to participate (beyond listening), it’s easy to do.
The thing that I find the coolest about FriendFeed is that it doesn’t require me to give up any of my previous social networks. If you use Facebook, you continue to do so. Twitter, same thing. FriendFeed is complementary to all these services. In this way, it’s a very sustainable transition. Remember how long it took you to get good at Facebook? Well, you don’t have to risk any of that investment by slowly experimenting with FriendFeed. (I have never used Twitter before now, but am getting a taste for it, slowly, as I get good at FriendFeed.) It’s all very interoperable, and open, and squishy good! 
