[scribkin] Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

June 27, 2008 – 12:52 pm

Ok, for today’s rant, I’m going to pick on those folks that signed up for FriendFeed, added a few services, and then never logged back in. More specifically, I am going to pick on Steve Gillmor.

Take a look at my headline shot. That’s Steve Gillmor, famous writer and technology news pundit. Talking head on the Gillmor Gang radio show. Insightful, critical, and accomplished.

Also, a poser!

Sorry to pick on Steve here, but when I saw his name in the FriendFeed recommendations it inspired this post.

What is a poser? It’s actually a pretty storied word in BBS and internet circles. It comes from the French word Poseur (link from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary):

Basically, in online culture, a poser is somebody who is a pretender. They act like they know or are something that they are not.

Getting back to Steve and similar, I don’t have a problem with them at all, as people. I don’t even want to bring their credentials into question. But three data points on FriendFeed tell me that they are not only harmless internet tourists, signing up for FriendFriend and then wandering away, never to be seen from again.

The first data point is up there. Steve has only added two services to FriendFeed. One is his blog, the other is Twitter, which he is extremely active on, not that there is anything wrong with that.
The second data point is his activity. On his friendfeed page, it says this:
Comments: none this week, 2 all time
Obviously not a very active user of the service.
Steve is popular enough that FriendFeed thought he would be a good person to follow. And, if you check out how much conversation his tweets generate, it’s true – he’s popular.

Steve and other industry folks who have their toe in FriendFeed but don’t use the service actively earn the badge of FriendFeed Poser. They eschew the service, but have still signed up, added their platform of choice and a headshot of themselves, and then vanish back to their lairs.

They are essentially telling us, yeah well I don’t like FriendFeed, but I’m still going to use it for PR until my primary publicity vehicle stops working (in this case Twitter).

I believe this is wrong.

Why? Take a look again at Steve’s tweets on FriendFeed. Often times, just by having these two services (and, let’s face it, Twitter mostly), he is generating conversation. People find what he has to say interesting and worthy of comment.

But he is not listening. He couldn’t care less.

If you aren’t replying to him or commenting on Twitter (which is down at the time of this writing) or his blog, he doesn’t care how much buzz he’s generating.

So, my advice to you internet pundits, either crap or get off the pot. Why not pull yourself off FriendFeed completely until you want to interact? I’m close to just blocking FriendFeed posers as matter of policy.

Tags: friendfeed, poser, rant, twitter

FriendFeed Stats • Comments: 61 • Likes: 34 • show

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June 27, 2008 at 1:03 pm Brian Daniel Eisenberg

ummm. what qualifies one as a poser?
June 27, 2008 at 1:05 pm mike "glemak" dunn

well said - poser comes from surfer lingo btw, for guys that would show up w/ nice boards and "pose" on the beach while the real surfers paddled out - very recognizable on the beach and in social media ;)
June 27, 2008 at 1:05 pm J. Phil

Not to get angry, Brian, but did you read the article? Please God, let's not turn FriendFeed into Digg.
June 27, 2008 at 1:07 pm l0ckergn0me

First!
June 27, 2008 at 1:08 pm Bwana McCall

LOL @ the certificate
June 27, 2008 at 1:08 pm Thomas Hawk

remember when all those people came out initially and called Twitter a "fad?" Lots of folks hated it. Didn't matter though it still represented innovation and to that end eventually even the haters were brought on board. Same thing will happen with FF. Gillmor is a hater right now. But he'll eventually come around. They always do. Same thing happened with the conversion from film cameras to digital cameras. It just takes some more time than others.
June 27, 2008 at 1:09 pm Robert Seidman

your article was boring linkbait. How's that much different from Digg? :-) People should be allowed to use services any way they see fit. You get out what you put in, so what difference does it make? Perhaps Gillmor wants to use FriendFeed merely as a way for Scoble to have an easy way to see his tweets on FriendFeed, so be it!
June 27, 2008 at 1:09 pm Delete Me

already on my block list for his dipshit commentary on gillmor gang.
June 27, 2008 at 1:10 pm Bwana McCall

Well written article! I also have a problem with these "posers" showing up as recommended users and I also feel FriendFeed is not an application you can look at on paper and dismiss. This happens more often than not.
June 27, 2008 at 1:11 pm J. Phil

Sweet! My first linkbait! As for the boring part.. we will see how popular it is...
June 27, 2008 at 1:11 pm Robert Seidman

Boring linkbait can be quite effective, J. Phil, I suspect it will be among your more popular articles!
June 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm Nathaniel Payne

I agree with Robert. Back when Scoble posted numerous tweets on Twitter, people started arguing with him that he was using Twitter "wrong". His response was great: essentially, there is no "wrong" way to use Twitter. Use it how you like to. FriendFeed is the same way. What if all I want is a lifestreaming service that I can post to my blog sidebar? Does it make me a poser just because I don't particularly want to join and interact with the community that is on the service? I don't think so.
June 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm Robert Seidman

Bwana, so the issue is more a product development issue w/FriendFeed continuing to recommend the same people. Do you really have an issue with Gillmor or anyone else not really using the service?
June 27, 2008 at 1:13 pm J. Phil

Nathanial, if it was anyone but Steve Gillmor, I'd agree with you. He's not doing that though. He's hedging his bets.
June 27, 2008 at 1:14 pm Nathaniel Payne

I will preface what I said with an agreement that someone who doesn't necessarily interact with FriendFeed shouldn't appear as a "recommended" user. ;)
June 27, 2008 at 1:14 pm Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Yup. I read it. Phil. I gave up trying to pay any attention to Steve after his rude interview with Bret Taylor, who was more than courteous in his replies to Steve's leading questions. Gillmor's snobish and elitist line of questioning with Bret and others who work at Friendfeed is testament to his child like behavior when it comes to FF & Twitter. His is noise I can do without, so I have one simple answer: Block on Twitter, Block on Friendfeed. Problem more or less solved.
June 27, 2008 at 1:15 pm Kirk Kittell

So if he signed up for the service, tried it out, then discontinued using it, that makes him a poser? Does not compute.
June 27, 2008 at 1:15 pm J. Phil

Brian, about the same conclusion I came to, but I thought I'd set off some fireworks first.
June 27, 2008 at 1:17 pm Bwana McCall

Whether he tried it or not is irrelevant... he's not using it, so why is he a recommended user?
June 27, 2008 at 1:18 pm Dobromir Hadzhiev

don't look at the recommendations, the way they're are generated is questionable maybe even random, besides that the post was LOL, it felt right
June 27, 2008 at 1:19 pm Kirk Kittell

@Bwana - That doesn't make him a poser. A poser is trying to get in front of the crowd to be seen by that crowd. Gillmor isn't inserting himself in front of this crowd, his account is being placed there by the service.
June 27, 2008 at 1:22 pm felix

I noticed these folks too, I think "using it wrong" is a bit harsh, but all the same, I've begun weeding them out of my subscribe list. I have GReader to pull in feeds, I come to FF for the conversation. But if there's conversation on FF around something posted on an inactive users list, I'm happy to partake of it if it's interesting. Just because one doesn't like the source, doesn't mean the resulting bits around it aren't worthwhile!
June 27, 2008 at 1:24 pm Jim Stanger

There's nothing wrong with just setting your feeds up and walking away. That's just one way to use this service. There are other, more social, ways to use it, and that's ok, too. Agree that what's raw is if he still lands in the Recommended list. Plurk does this, also, I believe. Who do they "recommend?" The usual suspects...which can be rather boring. It may give the creators brownie points and blog links, but little ense. I would hope the FF gurus would mix it up more often.
June 27, 2008 at 1:25 pm Bwana McCall

Kirk, then why won't he delete the account? Or stop feeding?
June 27, 2008 at 1:28 pm Robert Seidman

why should he, Bwana? Not that this is the case w/Gillmor, but let's say he just wanted to aggregate his Internet presence on FriendFeed and give that feed to his friends and family and not participate all. What's wrong with that? That will likely be a fairly common use case if FriendFeed is to scale.
June 27, 2008 at 1:28 pm J. Phil

Jim.. good point. That's essentially what I was thinking in the article, but I deliberately went for a more rant attitude. I just love how emotionally charged the word 'poser' is.. I didn't realize people had such different interpretations of it, though.
June 27, 2008 at 1:30 pm Kirk Kittell

@Bwana - probably the same reason I don't delete my Hi5 or Friendster accounts: it's less work to not delete them. As long as they aren't bothering me with mail, they don't exist to me, and I don't even consider deleting them. I suppose that's the difference I would mention between a poser and non-poser: intent.
June 27, 2008 at 1:30 pm Karen Swim

I think your assessment may be a bit harsh. There are many who don't use FF to chat and they are not posers. We are all figuring out how to implement the various social meda tools in our arsenal and Twitter was an easy medium for chatting. I admit I initally thought of FF as an aggregator not a chat vehicle.
June 27, 2008 at 1:31 pm Tony

Just because people are getting used to a service - or find new or personally convenient ways to use a service doesn't mean they are "posing." but I didn't read the blog post - so maybe Im missing the point...
June 27, 2008 at 1:31 pm Kirk Kittell

Also, I'm not as closely involved in the same industry as the rest of you -- I don't have any back story to the why/why not for Gillmor. He's just a name I recognize from Gillmor Gang, which is something I don't follow...
June 27, 2008 at 1:35 pm mike "glemak" dunn

kirk nailed it - there is a backstory here when it comes to steve and ff...
June 27, 2008 at 1:35 pm J. Phil

Karen - Agreed, actually I tried to say several times in my post that I have no problems with most friendfeed 'tourists'.
June 27, 2008 at 1:40 pm Kirk Kittell

Ah. Well. I see. In that case: back to work...
June 27, 2008 at 1:41 pm Karen Swim

J. Phil, noted and thanks for saying it again! I :-)
June 27, 2008 at 1:42 pm Teeg

I often come to FriendFeed to see what's going on with friends on other sites. It gives me a nice rundown of what they're saying other places and what they find interesting. I don't often come chat or vote up sites, probably because commenting here doesn't show up on blogs, so doesn't make sense to post twice and because Plurk isn't included, so the main place I want to talk isn't available. It doesn't mean I don't use it, I do and often, but I'm pretty sure I don't use it like it's "supposed" to be used.
June 27, 2008 at 1:44 pm Lon Harris

If you read the post, J. Phil's just saying that it's kind of rude to feed your blog and Twitter to FriendFeed and then never participate in the ensuing conversations. I think "poser" may be a bit harsh, seeing as most people haven't really thought this behavior through to this extent, but he it's an interesting point to make.
June 27, 2008 at 1:48 pm J. Phil

Richard, FriendFeed can be viewed as a simple lifestream aggregator, and using it as such as fine. Or whatever, actually I don't really care how anyone uses FriendFeed or NOT using it or whatever. There are three (well, four) reasons I wrote this article, to be honest: 1) I wanted to say 'for shame' to those who depend on services such as twitter and friendfeed to promote their personal brand, and they bash FF and *are using it for advertising anyway*, 2) I wanted to write my first "rant" article (contd')
June 27, 2008 at 1:49 pm J. Phil

3) I wanted to highlight that friendfeed's suggested people to follow mechanism is sort of busted, and 4) I wanted people to realize that FriendFeed has an amazing amount of potential for community building and opinion and input, and those people who just visit and vanish are basically ignoring all that.
June 27, 2008 at 1:51 pm Bwana McCall

All I'm saying is if you're going on record to dismiss a service, why bother feeding it your data or even using it. Case in point, I hate/dismiss Myspace all the time, and I have an account. There's absolutely nothing there. It's solely for squatting. I agree that the "recommended user" part is mostly a FriendFeed issue, but I don't see Gillmor complaining about it either. My $0.02.
June 27, 2008 at 1:51 pm David Cook

@Robert Seidman: "Not that this is the case w/Gillmor, but let's say he just wanted to aggregate his Internet presence on FriendFeed and give that feed to his friends and family and not participate all." *Spot on!* If someone just wants a link for people to see what they're up to/have to say, they are not at all a "poser" they are just taking advantage of what the service has to offer. @J. Phil: If this blog was just a way to single out Gillmor, then this would not be a problem at all. However, if you are talking about the gen pop of FF users, I think you're off base with this one.
June 27, 2008 at 1:53 pm Bwana McCall

David,I'm quite sure Gillmor has went on record to point people to Twitter for everything. That scenario doesn't apply here. My assumption here is that even though the title is general, it's a poke at Gillmor specifically.
June 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm David Cook

Bwana, my point is simply that if he wants to bash someone he doesn't necessarily like, then by all means do it and I'll probably get a laugh out of it. But I just don't feel that all people who don't "use" FF are wrong. If you want a service aggregator and don't actually visit the site to check up on it, doesn't make you a poser.
June 27, 2008 at 2:06 pm J. Phil

David, as I said in my article (and here to Karen) my intent is not to say that most people who use friendfeed (even as a tourist) are posers.
June 27, 2008 at 2:09 pm Bwana McCall

@David If FriendFeed were a pure aggregator (like Profilactic), I'd agree with that, but it's really not if you ask me. There's much more to it. But I digress. I have other concerns about Gillmor that are outside the scope of this article. I'll agree to disagree simply because inserting Gillmor into this situation brings along a lot of baggage.
June 27, 2008 at 2:14 pm David Cook

Bwana, I see your point and I agree with you in the sense that FF *should* be more than just an aggregator. I, myself don't use it that way at all. I love getting involved, reading posts, comments, and making comments myself. It's just that when J. Phil said: "So, my advice to you internet pundits, either crap or get off the pot. Why not pull yourself off FriendFeed completely until you want to interact? I’m close to just blocking FriendFeed posers as matter of policy."
June 27, 2008 at 2:14 pm J. Phil

Bwana - I agree with you here, but as I stated in the article, I picked on Gillmor (though I deliberately did not use his name in the title) because he was the first person in the suggested people to be a clear non-user of the service. I admit that using his name would heat up the discussion a bit, which is good for an opinion piece.
June 27, 2008 at 2:23 pm Sprague D

This is the limit. I need a way to filter posts that have the word "FriendFeed" in them.
June 27, 2008 at 2:27 pm David Cook

J. Phil, "David, as I said in my article (and here to Karen) my intent is not to say that most people who use friendfeed (even as a tourist) are posers." I read what you said to Karen *after* my post went through. But the quote I posted to Bwana is what made me say all that.
June 27, 2008 at 2:29 pm J. Phil

Sprague - LOL sorry for have annoyed you with my post. Feel free to hide or block as needed. ;)
June 27, 2008 at 2:45 pm Shey

You're on to something Phil, but I'm not with you 100%.
June 27, 2008 at 2:45 pm Hutch Carpenter

J. Phil: Stir it up!
June 27, 2008 at 2:48 pm J. Phil

Thanks, David. No offense taken, or meant.
June 27, 2008 at 2:50 pm J. Phil

Shey - That's OK. Remember my about page. My goal is to increase my writing portfolio. This was an opinion piece, a 'rant'. While I of course will take personal responsibility, I wrote it mostly to see if I could write it, as much of a tautology as that sounds.
June 27, 2008 at 2:55 pm AJ Kohn

It's social (media) Darwinism to a certain extent. Those who use, explore and excel using FriendFeed will benefit the most. Should Gillmor or anyone else decide to not do so is only really harming themselves - if you believe FF is here to stay (which I think it is.) So others will be late to the party, some too late, but others will have enough social capital to join when the tipping point becomes obvious.
June 27, 2008 at 3:29 pm Slippy Lane

more to the point, and given your own realisations on writing that article, does posing that question place you further into the realms of poser? lol, j/k obviously
June 27, 2008 at 3:41 pm J. Phil

Slippy - I wouldn't consider myself a poser on FriendFeed by my own definition. Now, you look at me on Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc.. HELL YES.
June 27, 2008 at 3:57 pm Hutch Carpenter

I like a point you made in your post. Gillmor is not at all active inside FriendFeed (his activity comes from Twitter). Yet he shows up as a recommendation. Perhaps there is a better way to do recommendations.
June 27, 2008 at 4:14 pm Shey

@Hutch, yup, I agree. A lot of people don't like how the recommendations currently work.
June 27, 2008 at 9:05 pm AwesomePossum248

As long as the server or other FriendFeed users are not being hurt, I don't get what's wrong with people using FriendFeed how they want to.
June 28, 2008 at 6:56 am Tyler Gillies

im a pouser!!!!!!!!!!!
June 28, 2008 at 6:41 pm J. Phil

Tyler - Are you? Your user icon is Ed Norton, and you go by Tyler.. which would make you.. a big fan of Fight Club perhaps?

Viewing 33 Comments

Mike 2 months ago 1 point
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Does it really matter enough to waste this much time and energy?

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J. Phil 2 months ago 1 point
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Not to ego stroke too much, Mike, but this article for better or worse is now my third-most popular in terms of share and second-most in terms of FriendFeed discussion. It has drawn a lot of eyes to my site and has even gotten Steve Gillmore to take a minute out and comment, which he didn't have to do.

So you tell me, was it worth it?

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nikan 2 months ago 1 point
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My two pennies: most of the web 2 addicts HAVE to sign up to various services and NOT use them simply because they have to maintain their online identity (or brand, or microbrand) intact.
Don't know if you followed the story about how someone pretended to be Loic Le Meur in plurk and posting things that turned insulting for Loic? Now, Loic does not use plurk, but he had to claim back his identity.
If there is something to be annoyed about, is the friendfeed recommendation. Maybe they need a more clever algorithm.

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J. Phil 2 months ago 1 point
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I do remember the Loic issue.

Hmm.. I will grudgingly accept that you have a good argument for a placeholder. However, as you said, that doesn't mean FriendFeed should put someone like Steve on their recommended list (because by all accounts he is not active).

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spuds 2 months ago 1 point
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I am an active member at FriendFeed and Twitter. No posing here!

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J. Phil 2 months ago 1 point
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Excellent. Even if you weren't, I wouldn't hold it against you.

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Ryo 2 months ago 1 point
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Yep. I comment on Friendfeed ususally. If one does not care about the comments there, it's lost. However, that is not my problem :) I don't care about. Read it on friendfeed, or not at all.

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J. Phil 2 months ago 1 point
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In a way, this is the same behavior Steve is exhibiting, but in reverse.. he uses Twitter exclusively.

So let me ask you: do you have a Twitter login that you ignore? If so, you could be described as a "twitter poser"..

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Ryo 1 month ago 1 point
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Yeah, right. Twitter-Poser may be the right words :)
I use Twitter only to get my stuff out to the poor guys that don't use friendfeed. I send all my friendfeed-stuff to Twitter via twitterfeed.com, but i usually never check anything on Twitter for month.

So, yeah, you could say that.

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chris peoples 2 months ago 2 points
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Somewhat unrelated, but as I was formulating a response to this post something else occurred to me: FriendFeed should forgo its commenting system and just implement Disqus. In fact, everyone should just use Disqus for comments. Maybe I should Twitter this. Or FriendFeed it. Or tumblr it. Heh.

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J. Phil 2 months ago 1 point
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I generally feel that using friendfeed to comment is easier than using Disqus.. not by much.. but yeah, using Disqus for friendfeed comments would introduce a level of complexity and load on an additional system.

However, there are rumors that Disqus is working with FriendFeed to bring the two services together in some way.. perhaps allowing two-way publishing on syndicated articles.

Now that would be very cool.

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chris peoples 1 month ago 1 point
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That would be cool. Disqus just empowers my laziness. Whenever I leave a comment somewhere - which is rare - I always forget to check back for replies. I even forget where I've commented at. Disqus takes care of these things for me.

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J. Phil 1 month ago 1 point
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If you are saying what I think, which is that FriendFeed should notify you somehow of new replies on old conversations, I'm right there with you!

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Lynne d Johnson 2 months ago 2 points
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I think it's an excellent post and worthy of discussion. People use Pownce, Jaiku, Plaxo Pulse, and other services similar. They set it up and then walk away. I call it parking and creating lifestreams, as you've already stated. And as others have pointed out, there is definitely an issue with porting the activity that happens back into other services. Sure, there are now ways to have comments from blog posts pulled back in with plugins like on Wordpress, but other advances haven't happened yet.

The thing that makes Twitter work for everyone, whether we're fed up with the way it doesn't always work or not, is that conversation is simple. Especially back-and-forth conversation. Not to say it isn't simple on FriendFeed, if you're using FriendFeed solely, I just think that most people have not trained themselves to use FriendFeed as their main communications tool yet. I set up two things recently to do that. I've added tabs to FriendFeed so that it's my start page and I've also started using feedalizr, which lets me use a few of my other services directly. See my blog post on this for more info.

Friendfeed is still too early adopter, IMHO, to get everyone there really interacting.

Are You Really Using FriendFeed, or are You a Poser?

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