I really debated on including the actual FriendFeed name in the headline because as is typical in the blogosphere I can just see the whining starting very soon over FriendFeed this and FriendFeed that. This always happens after the lovefest that surrounds any new service launch or improvements to an existing favorite service.

That said I have been watching and participating heavily; for me anyway, with FriendFeed for the past while and I have come to believe that not only has FriendFeed changed the conversation landscape but it could very well change the way bloggers do their work. It is my feeling that if properly used FriendFeed could very well become our personal news nerve center - our own personal newswire if you will.

Some folks like other similar services like SocialThing and there is nothing wrong with that but it is the simplicity of FriendFeed that helps make it a more valuable service for bloggers. The way that the UI is laid out scanning over new or updated posts is extremely easy with very little distractions; which is a good thing because we have enough distractions going on as it is.

Yes there is still a lot of noise that can happen but as with everything else that only requires some time to tweak your tools. In this regard the FriendFeed team does provide some good filtering options to start and are looking at other ways to make it better based on our feedback to them. So like any tool if you want to make it better let them know as they have made it more than obvious that they are listening.

For many folks FriendFeed is just a fun way to see what is going on across their various social networks and that is cool but bloggers should step back for a second and really look at what is there.

In one central place you have a constant flow of what is happening within a five minute (or whatever the refresh rate is for the FriendFeed page) right across the whole blogosphere and social networks. You get to see what new posts are available before most other folks relying on feed readers or the such. You get to see what folks are sharing long before most others will and you get to see the conversations that are developing.

That my friends is a pretty powerful tool that can help keep you on top and in the flow as it is developing far faster than any other medium. FriendFeed has given us the tool to be right on the front lines of the blogosphere and social network happenings but as with all tools we need to respect what comes our way via that newswire. Even though there might be the perception that what you see on FriendFeed is public some folks may not feel that way.

This gets especially difficult to perceive the further you get into the comments that are made around individual FriendFeed postings. I am not sure how the FriendFeed community will end up dealing with the public vs assumed private issue but maybe in the meantime some common sense and consideration is best when republishing comments made their - would you want you comments broadcast beyond the FriendFeed community (regardless of what Google might index).

FriendFeed is very attentive to what its users want and they are doing a great job of balancing those wishes with what they feel will make the service better overall. This bodes well for the general users of the service but I think that for bloggers it will make FriendFeed an even better nerve center for our daily work.

Listening to: Perfect Stranger - Change - Ode Ao Sol Eitan Reiter Remix

Conversation Tags: FriendFeed, newswire, bloggers