So. Maybe you read Michael’s rant about FriendFeed being like syphilis. His point was that its brilliant technology which facilitates real-time discussions is also perfect for mobs. Mobs that rally around hot topics, and get whipped up into saying fairly awful things about people they don’t really know. I’ve written similar things in the past as well. Anyways, a mob situation came up led to us pulling our FriendFeed account.
Today at our Real-Time CrunchUp, Michael sat down with FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor and Robert Scoble, one of the service’s leading cheerleaders. Scoble has disagreed with Michael in the past that FriendFeed commenting could lead to a problem. But today, he agreed with him when put on the spot. But the more interesting part of the discussion was Taylor also admitting that the mob-mentality (though he wouldn’t use those words) was more or less a problem. And they’re working on a solution.
One solution Taylor laid out is that users should be able to shut down comments for specific threads on FriendFeed. This way, if a conversation is getting out of control, you can just shut it down. Currently, you can moderate comments on a thread, but only on a one by one basis, this would shut things down in one fell swoop. But another more interesting thing Taylor said they were talking about is only allowing comments from users in your social graph.
Sounds good to us. We’re reopening our FriendFeed account. It’s not ready yet, but stay tuned. And watch the video below for some of the hilarity. And the one below that for what this really is all about.