Facebook was unable to successfully court Twitter before so it’s going for the next best thing — FriendFeed.
This acquisition will open up FriendFeed to over 250 million Facebook users and hopefully catapult them to the same level as where Twitter is now.
“FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team.” according to Bret Taylor over at the FriendFeed blog.
The sales is said to be in the $50 Million range in cash and stocks. It’s still unknown how FriendFeed will integrate with Facebook but my guess is that FF could replace the FB Status messages.
i have an account in friendfeed and facebook. I do enjoyed but right now facebook and twitter still the most popular. But who knows someday friend feed will be the most popular. Lets just wait and see.^_^.
@Patrick: Interesting.
More news:
Facebook Not the End: FriendFeed Launches Custom Themes
FriendFeed is now the property of Facebook. The team got a nice $47.5 million payday for its troubles. The team is even moving to Facebook (facebook) headquarters really soon. A lot of people expect the FriendFeed (FriendFeed) site to disappear in the future, so would you really expect FriendFeed to release new features at this stage?
That’s exactly what they’ve done today. The new addition is custom FriendFeed themes, which gives you the ability to change your background and color scheme – exactly what Twitter (Twitter) has offered for a long time. Still, it’s interesting that FriendFeed is chugging along with new features despite the acquisition.
The new themes can be created, added, and adjusted in the settings panel. We’re already seeing some interesting themes being built.
While this feature was almost certainly in the process of being built before the acquisition, it still highlights the commitment the FriendFeed team made to the product after the announcement. Will these new features keep coming? For how long? And will we see any of these new features come to Facebook (would you really want custom themes on Facebook?). These are all questions that’ll be answered soon.
http://mashable.com/2009/08/13/friendfeed-custom-themes/
@BungeeJump: The people behind Friendfeed were former Google employees. They were behind some of the most successful Google products like Gmail and AdSense. Also, Facebook had been copying FF’s features for a long time. Facebook needs Friendfeed’s staff.
I don’t care! hahaha! For me its either Twitter or Facebook… I don’t even know Friendfeed (ngayon lang, kasi nabanggit ni Yuga [thanks yuga! ;D]) Too bad Google’s attempt to purchase Facebook and Twitter with their billions of dollars failed… both declined Google’s offer! :( So Google purchased Jaiku instead, which has more features / more powerful than Twitter (according to a blog I read somewhere).. I agree with BungeeJump, Friendfeed needs Facebook than the other way around.. it’s just a waste of money for Facebook. :p
Strange, what is the purpose of the merging? Friendfeed needs Facebook more than Facebook needs Friendfeed. But why would facebook willing to merging with a less populated social site? Changes are, the people of Friendfeed will migrate to Facebook instead and back-firing Friendfeed.
I hope they keep their current Friendfeed site and just integrate it with Facebook. FF’s a really good news aggregator. But I’m also happy for Facebook because they can finally officially “copy” Friendfeed’s features. :P
Twitter could be in trouble now. They should have sold to FB.
This is the first time I heard of FriendFeed! Anyone used this before? What are its highlights?
This is not so bad. At least there would be one less social networking site to manage as two has been combined into one.