When FriendFeed launched new themes back in June, I wanted but one feature: The ability to create my own. Today, I got my wish.
Despite being purchased by Facebook for close to $50 million earlier this week, FriendFeed is still rolling out new features. Today brings customizable themes, which allow you to tweak your template to make it as pretty or as ugly as you would like. Naturally, I’m going for ugly, as I stated my desire to mimic the excellent “Eggplant Orange Juice With Blood” theme I created for Gmail when that service launched customizable themes.
So far, my best effort (below) is called “Dictionary.com Cheer Carrot Theme” after my new favorite website. To FriendFeed’s credit, they make it pretty hard to make a truly ugly design, like you can easily do on Gmail. One reason is that theren’t are as many variables to change the colors of.
One interesting note about these themes is that by default, you will see other users’ themes when you click on their profiles. You will also see the themes that admin’s create in rooms that they manage. You can turn this off, and choose to only see your theme, in the settings.
And just for comparison sake, the old Gmail design I did:
You really should redesign techcrunch.com, I’m sure the visitor numbers would increase exponentially.
agreed.
@MG
There is a real issue here! It’s the lack of one single global CSS setting on both FriendFeed and Twitter that would allow the background to remain fixed and in the top-center of the page.
A custom design does no good, if the screen resolution pulls the right side graphics behind the page content. Also not good, is the left side graphics moving further away from the left side edge of the page content as the screen resolution increases in width.
If they would just fix this, I could make a decent living designing themes for both sites.
~
“Cheers”
JP
Finally, somebody who is at least a little perplexed as to why these large companies let something so simple be broken. It would be so simple to fix! Please Twitter let the backgound image be anchored.
Signed, The Internet.
Agrees 100%!
I want to see your themes available as standard because they are innovative and cutting edge. I’m sure a position at Apple is just around the corner
Ouch! Why so harsh?
Great, now what does ShitCrunch.com think of all this?)
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
I strongly agree with the first comment. I very satisfied with the current UI of techcrunch. It’s very simple, and easy to navigate through.
strongly *disagree*
It was a joke…
I like it
Best article title EVER!
Someone should make a facebook theme and see how FF looks inside facebook!
Srikanth
http://www.arktan.com
hahaha!Nice article, useful and kinda funny. (:
replace the word “friendfeed” in your title to “techcrunch”. this is a poor excuse for a rebuttal. you must have felt like a horses ass after you spewed your last non-sense. so you sprinkle more toxic toppings of uselessness. sorry MG Siegler but i dare wait for you to write a meaningful column, or should i give up and outcast techcrunch till they find a better replacement.
i understand its your opinion but wouldnt writing a more clever article about these companies help raise your (techcrunch) ratings. i suppose you might think bad ratings is good as well. the question is how long will people put up with it.
Give him a break, i personally like what he posts. It has humour in it, if you don’t like his posts then don’t read them. I don’t see what everyone has against MG.
He’s better than that shitty Arrington guy
I am really surprised at two things here MG.
1. That you HATE the dictionary.com takeover advertisement so much…
2. That you would make Cheer your background without being compensated somehow, I think you need to talk to Jeremy Schoemaker about making the most of such situations.
Enough pestering you; I am glad that FriendFeed is still operating as an independent company even with the Facebook acquisition. Perhaps it can be a feature sandbox for Facebook to cherry pick from?
FirendFeed’s dead. RIP FF.
Nice article, useful and kinda funny.
.
Your Google theme is particularly ugly… even for someone who’s color blind!
This is cool. Now we can truly make friendfeed uglier or better still more beautiful.
I tried this, and see what i have http://www.frie...adesojiadegbulu
What you have sir, is a broken link.
eggplant orange with red is completely mind numbing and makes me want to throw up. good work mc g!
ugly crap rules!
Finally it’s possible to use the “teletubby” wallpaper from windows XP for my friendfeed page
I kind of like your gmail theme. Can I use it for my gmail?
“Ugly” is an understatement for the gmail theme that u have created