So this morning the pronouncement came down from TechCruncher Duncan Riley that as good as FriendFeed might be it was for him no better than being a repeater for activity on Twitter. He even had a fancy pants graph showing the large proportion of his FriendFeed activity was centered around Twitter. Wow .. I was impressed by the research that Duncan must have done to arrive at those figures that made up that impressive graph.

Did I mention how impressed I was?

Then I noticed something - he was basing all this impressive data collection on one day’s usage. Sorry Duncan but one day’s data doesn’t even come close to giving you enough to base anything on, let alone the effect that a semi negative TechCrunch review can have on any service. Plus how many of those friends made blog posts, how many posted to Flickr, how many liked something that was said or posted on FriendFeed itself, how many took part in a conversation on FriendFeed and then how many are just a bunch of blabbermouths on Twitter.

Data collection; which Duncan seems to favor, cannot be a result of a one day dipping your toe in something and then uttering pronouncements of how it is just another example of something done by someone else. As pointed out by Louis Gray in his post countering much of what Duncan said it is also a matter of participation:

Looking at Duncan’s stream on FriendFeed (http://friendfeed.com/duncanriley), I can see he imported his service and added friends, but he didn’t participate. He didn’t comment on other items. He didn’t respond to others’ comments. He didn’t “Like” anything. He took a very passive approach and it’s the interactivity of FriendFeed that sets the service apart.

Another thing that FriendFeed has become is a recommendation engine - especially for those that participate instead of sitting on the sidelines making fancy pants graphs. I know for myself I look more to FriendFeed for interesting stories to follow rather than Techmeme or services like it; and it is exactly because of this built-in recommendation engine that Duncan in his passive use has totally missed out on what is part of the driving force behind FriendFeed.

The other big misconception is that FriendFeed hit the big time because it had people like the TechCrunch crew and Robert Scoble join it. As Mark Evans asked in an excellent piece called What’s the Caramilk Secret what was it that really caused FriendFeed to reach that next level of popularity if in fact it wasn’t the A-List bunch

Another thesis is FriendFeed was lucky to have found a real evangelist. Perhaps the key piece in this puzzle is Louis Gray, a blogger based in Silicon Valley, who quickly fell in love with FriendFeed, and created a hailstorm of attention yesterday with a post on how popular FriendFeed has become popular many “elite bloggers”.

Brian Solis takes on the question being asked as to why we need another aggregator

NEWSFLASH: It’s not about you per se. It’s about those who enjoy following your activity online. And yes, there are many tools that do this, but at the end of the day, why not make it easier for people to connect with you using the tools that they’re most comfortable with.

The consensus is that FriendFeed is fun and definitely makes it easier and by far, more elegant, as a way of keeping a “pulse” on your network.

The point is that FriendFeed was growing quite nicely without the Scoble or TechCrunch Effect - all that has happened now is that the noise ratio has jumped making the real early adopters be even more picky about accepting friends.

Like anything else it is all in how you used the tools that makes the difference. Sure you might be able to get that nail all the way in by hitting it with a shovel but that doesn’t make the most effective use of the shovel. Using FriendFeed isn’t just sitting on the sidelines making fancy pants graphs. No, using FriendFeed means getting involved for a period longer than your coffee break. It means figuring out which of all those friend requests coming in are best suited for making your participation the most effective.

So I hate to say it Duncan but like Louis said - you missed the point. Maybe if you actually participated you might get what is making FriendFeed so popular and why the A-Listers are actually the last one’s to be catching this train.

Oh and by the way Corvida any more remarks about Louis Gray and awesomesauce in the same sentence and yer gonna owe me a new keyboard as I don’t think this one can take much more spillage.

Conversation Tags: FriendFeed, TechCrunch, Mark Evans, Brian Solis, Louis Gray, SheGeeks