FriendFeed has pushed out its new design to users. The lifestreaming service, which was beginning to get unwieldy, has been cleaned up. Friends lists are more customizable. Co-founder Bret Taylor explains in a blog post:
The new design offers friend lists to help you organize your subscriptions into groups. Now you can get updates from specific groups of people separately, or you can add an acquaintance to a list and remove them from your home feed.
Photos can be posted directly into your feed. The new design also detects duplicate links and articles from multiple friends, and only shows you the article once.
Before, the right hand column was cluttered with requests from friends to join them in special conversation “rooms” and groups. Now, all of that is thankfully hidden behind links in the left-hand pane. All that is left at the top right are three key navigation links that filter the best content from the last day, week, and month as determined by how many comments each entry has or ho many people “liked” it.
The design isn’t radically different. But it does rein in the chaos and reinforce the original concept of a simple feed for your entire online life.
I love the duplicate filter, great addition.
Yeah, big improvement.
new friendfeed layout is live {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/KngxDZg0nu_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”new friendfeed layout is live ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/xKd9Hvv6sz”}}}
There’s been a lot of conversation on FriendFeed about this update. Maybe people are saying that the site is focusing on cosmetic changes and ignoring the underlying tech. What do you guys think?
Link to the conversation on FF:
http://tinyurl.com/48a8tm
Is this going to help FriendFeed go mainstream? {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/y0UMCt2HCb_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Is this going to help FriendFeed go mainstream? ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/rgne9YEJiC”}}}
Hey Andrew. I think that you are missing the point. The point of friendfeed is not to help a user create a unified feed of all their services. The point of friendfeed is to use your friends as a filter for the explosion of content happening on the web. The second benefit of friendfeed is that it creates a shared experience where you and you friends can hvae a conversation. Finally friendfeed is an amazing search engine. All three aspects are relevant to “mainstream” users. The challenge facing friendfeed is that facebook seems to be heading the same direction and they have a little bit of a head start. But do not underestimate friendfeed because they have a really great team!
Now will they fix their FB app so it can appear in a separate tab?
FriendFeed is on my list of the best new tools out there. They still have a bit of work to do on design and feature updates, but overall I love this version. I am a big fan!
How is this news? Tons of sites change their design all the time. Why is TechCrunch obsessed with FriendFeed.
Definitely an improvement from the previous version but I liked it better as it was in BETA, with sidebar on right. Bloggers, which are a big part of FF’s users are used to right aligned sidebars.
Maybe they will add an options in the “Account” tab to switch sidebar’s position. Would be pretty easy to implement and make everybody happy.
I still won’t use it because I have a real life that takes precedent over my online life. I think most people that are actively involved in the lives of their friends and family won’t be inclined, nor have the time, to use a tool like this.
Heck I barely have time to read TechCrunch and post smartass comments.
There is always time to read TechCrunch and post smartass comments.
You’ll be visited shortly by your local union boss to discuss this.
Carry on.
Big Dicks
I’m really liking this version of FriendFeed. Of course, time will tell as to it’s improved usefulness but I really like the new look.
Incredibly similar to new Facebook design in my opinion, kind of points you in the direction they are aiming
The new version of friendfeed is so cool !!
it looks way better than old version.
i agree with you, better design.
I Liked The New Design Of Friend Feed…
-Anurag R. C.
http://www.pcdrome.com
next facebook?
http://cashtutor.blogspot.com
Seems like a lame update. Hardly newsworthy. This product is the result of a good idea but doesn’t seem to be something that’s going to catch on when it’s functionality is something that bigger players like facebook can easily replicate.
I am really loving the new Friendfeed design. This has been long overdue.
It almost seems like TC has invested in FriendFeed
They always speak about them endlessly
I think top header + left panel should be fixed while page is scrolling…