NoiseRiver Developer Ditches FriendFeed, Claims Service to Continue

Editor's Note: An earlier edition of this post said NoiseRiver had shut down. But as mentioned in the comments, the site is expected to keep running at www.noiseriver.com, while the noiseriver.com domain was unresponsive. See Also: The Inquisitr: NoiseRiver developer quits FriendFeed, says LOLCats to blame.

In the A-List vs. Z-List world of social networks, the gap between those that get the lion's share of attention and those who get almost no attention can be huge. After months of participating on FriendFeed, and getting less of a response than he had hoped, one developer is leaving. Karim, known as "directeur" on FriendFeed, posted a long article on Google Docs called "Why I Quitted FriendFeed", saying that too much attention was paid to "top" users and "top" items, adding, "I'm quitting. No one will notice after all, maybe."

Also: Why I'm leaving Friendfeed, or how I surrender to the power of the ninja LOLCat

You name the service, and there will be complaints. Even those most popular, most widely adopted services have people who can't stand its features, its user interface, or the active community. Last week saw Mashable's Mark Hopkins leave FriendFeed due to what he saw as a hostile place for those who shared his political leanings. (See Rob Diana's comments here) Others have found the noise to be too much, as they couldn't find easy enough ways to filter and hide entries to get down to the items they were most likely to enjoy. And even more use the site just to aggregate their data, but don't participate, or sign up to take a look, but don't return - as many do for many other services.

Directeur's leaving FriendFeed is noteworthy because he was one of those working on a solution to the site's weaknesses, namely the ability to block specific terms, or to use your own interests to best anticipate new entries that would draw your attention. It turns out that not even his own service could prove to help him find a way through the noise and gain acceptance to a level he wanted to keep going. (Previous Coverage: New NoiseRiver App Adds Interest Filters to FriendFeed Stream)


NoiseRiver Back In June
He writes: "Tina (a kind friendfeeder) once said that friendfeed is what you make it. I tried to believe, and tried to prove it to myself. It didn't worked. I strived, I really tried, and it didn't worked." (sic)

Not every service is for everyone. Those which I use, including FriendFeed, make sense to me. And there are definitely people who make very real attempts to participate on a service, only to not get much interaction, thanks to low personal brand recognition, or other factors, and it's likely there will always be a gap between those socially rich and those socially poor, so to speak.

Looking at directeur's feed doesn't seem all that quiet compared to many I've seen. Practically every item receives likes and comments, the two major actions FriendFeed users can utilize to engage. But it looks like it wasn't enough.

FriendFeed Friday Tips #8: How To Post To FriendFeed Via E-mail

By popular demand, I've been asked by other FriendFeed users to highlight how I use the popular social lifestreaming site. So far the series has covered the "Hide" function, the bookmarklet, advanced search, how to integrate with Google Talk, how you can incorporate comments, determine an item's original source and how to learn more about your fellow users.

Since FriendFeed debuted their API this spring, the number of third party applications authored for the fast-growing aggregation service has been rapidly increasing. There have been different Web-based services to give a new look to FriendFeed, from FriendFeedMachine, MioNews and NoiseRiver, a mobile version from FFToGo, and other add-ons, including GreaseMonkey scripts and blog comments integrators. But sometimes, it'd just be a lot easier to start out with the original social network - e-mail.

Gary Burd, a long-time Microsoft employee, and now a member of FriendFeed's small staff, introduced a service that lets you post directly to FriendFeed, using your e-mail, including the attachment of photos or graphics, called Mail2FF, back in late May. He debuted the service prior to joining the Mountain View-based company, and its arrival was well accepted by co-founder Paul Buchheit, who wrote, "Cool! Did you create this Gary? This has been on my "things I personally want" list for a long time."

Using Mail2FF is quite simple, as you can see from a Mail2FF tutorial produced by Ross Miller, an intern at the company for a summer.

Step 1: Write Your Message

Open your e-mail application and compose your message, just like you were sending a regular e-mail. The subject line of your e-mail will be the subject line, and the body of the message will be posted as a comment on your own item.


Step 2: Add Pictures

Attach any photos or graphics you would like to accompany the item. They will be placed as part of the item in their full resolution, hosted on Amazon Web services. Up to two images will be displayed on the item, with a blue arrow being displayed if more than two images are attached.


Step 3: Know Where To Send It

Mail2FF uses your own API remote key, which you can find here. To send the message to FriendFeed, you would send it to:

username+remotekey@mail2ff.com

For me, assuming my remote key is purple456monkey, I would send it to:

louisgray+purple456monkey@mail2ff.com

The end result would be displayed like this:


Step 4: Sending the Message to a Room

If you want to get creative, you can even send your message, and images, to a FriendFeed room, rather than the main feed. This is done by adding the room name ahead of your username and remote key.

For example, if the room name is "babyfeed", one I've been using lately, I would send it to:

babyfeed+louisgray+purple456monkey@mail2ff.com


The result would be just as it is in your own feed, complete with subject line, body content as the first comment and attached images, but sent to the room itself. (See above or the actual posting)

Mail2FF was so clearly a success, it was integrated with FriendFeed's native version for the iPhone released at the end of June. (See: VentureBeat) And when I was stuck at the hospital, finding many of the Web sites I used completely blocked, like Flickr and FTP, Mail2FF was the only way I could send the very first pictures of Matthew and Sarah the world had ever seen. (See: Matthew and Sarah: First Photos (More Coming))

When entries are posted to FriendFeed via Mail2FF, you will see a tag "via Mail2FF", and the items are shown as "internal" FriendFeed postings. You can see some that I've done here, here and here. To get started, head to www.mail2ff.com and give your e-mail a shot.

mioNews Brings New Foldered Interface to FriendFeed

Another day brings another interesting new application using FriendFeed's API, attempting to give a new way for active users to sort their stream. Today's entrant, called mioNews, instead of trying to mimic the spartan FriendFeed interface, as many others have, brings an approach more commonly seen in RSS readers like Google Reader, or even e-mail applications, like Microsoft Outlook. The new, professional, look also comes with some new features to help users indicate stories they both "like" and "hate", as well as the option to follow specific topics.


The mioNews Interface: Click for Large version
Since FriendFeed introduced their API in March, we've seen new interfaces developed for mobile phones, iPhones, and the Web, using Ajax. We've seen options to highlight individual stories or users you've said you like, and others that help block individual keywords.

mioNews, authored by Patrick Lightbody, lets you carve up and read the updates in your feed by:

* Selecting topics, which shows the # of stories, and, when clicked, shows the stories in the main pane.
* Grouping friends in specific folders, as you specify.

Like in Google Reader, where you can choose to read full feeds, or just the title, mioNews, lets you show just the titles, or a short summary. Double-clicking on any item takes you to the item itself, be it from Twitter, a blog post, or a share in Google Reader. But more interestingly, you can turn on the site's Reading Pane, and like in Outlook, you can view the entire item, as well as take action on that item, including the ability to share, comment, like, or in a new wrinkle, hate a post. You can even mark all items as read, a feature many on FriendFeed have asked for, so far in vain.


The goal of mioNews, like NoiseRiver and FriendFeedMachine before it, is to help reduce the "noise" problem through giving you more control over selecting what you like and what you don't like. As Patrick writes in the introductory post, "instead of rating people and topics that you like/hate, mioNews asks you to like/hate individual articles. Then, using some autotagging secret sauce, the topics and people are tuned behind the scenes."

Provided you select topics that your friends are talking about in FriendFeed, mioNews will find it. It's no surprise they're often talking about Google, Twitter and FriendFeed. But if you branch out to sports, politics and the day's news, you might find some good gems in that rough.

mioNews' approach to the FriendFeed noise is unique. It might almost get on more desks at corporate, given how closely it approaches the look and feel of standard business applications. And as Patrick says, like NoiseRiver, it too is in alpha and much more is planned. You can keep up on mioNews in their room on FriendFeed here: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/mionews

New NoiseRiver App Adds Interest Filters to FriendFeed Stream

For those looking for FriendFeed Friday Tips #6, consider this post in lieu of the series. Our visits to see Sarah in the hospital prevented Friday posting. I'll look to be back on track next Friday.

As FriendFeed has grown its user base, the number of people to follow and items they add to their personal streams is increasing. Some are finding the resulting noise to be too much in its native form. While I've aggressively approached this issue by using the "Hide" function, others are looking to new services to take the next step, highlighting, in advance, those items that are most likely to draw your attention. NoiseRiver, a new service released yesterday, updates your stream based on instructions you give, including your liked and hated keywords and individuals, helping draw your eye to the best stuff fast.

As the author writes, NoiseRiver is not intended to replace FriendFeed outright, but instead, like FriendFeedMachine, FFToGo and other innovative apps, looks to fill a gap, extending the product with new features.


How NoiseRiver Describes Itself
Upon logging into NoiseRiver, you'll see your plain vanilla FriendFeed stream. But where NoiseRiver excels is in learning from hints you provide, including your giving keywords that you're most interested in, and those you are not, in the "My Interests" section. In fact, if you never want to see specific terms, like "Obama", "McCain" or "Fail Whale" again, all you have to do is make them a keyword, pull the slider to the left as far as it will go, signifying you hate a keyword, and check the box that reads, "Hide entries with a very high hated rank? (-100%)".


I Pick Keywords I Want to See Using Sliders
But more than just acting as a smart filter to hide topics you could care less about, NoiseRiver also lets you select terms you like, be they "Google", "RSS", or the iPhone.

You can also set parallel filters for people. If you have friends whose updates you simply don't want to miss, go to "My Neighborhood", where you can add people's FriendFeed nicknames, and again, move the slider to show how much you care about their entries in FriendFeed.


I Can Choose People's Importance As Well
Having applied updates to both your interests and your neighborhood, the result from NoiseRiver is the same FriendFeed you know, but with a colored overlay which guesses how much you will take interest in an item. If I said I like "duncanriley" and "Twitter", the green bar will be well to the right. If I said I like "scobleizer" or "davewiner" a little less, the bar will only go part of the way. NoiseRiver combines both your interests and your neighborhood, rather than having to choose one over the other.


The End Result Highlights My Anticipated Interests
Back in May, I wrote that Content filters were proving evasive for social media sites. In the ensuing month-plus, both FriendFeedMachine and NoiseRiver have taken aim at the problem, by leveraging FriendFeed's flexible API.

As with both FriendFeedMachine and FFToGo, NoiseRiver is no passive experience. All three applications enable you to make comments and like items from their interface, just as you would in FriendFeed. Making comments via NoiseRiver even adds a tag of "via NoiseRiver" in FriendFeed, helping to advertise the new service, as do the others. So if you already like FriendFeed, but want to find a better way to draw your eye to those things you'll like best, and hide the rest, NoiseRiver is a strong option. It's only been out for about 24 hours, so it should be fun to see what other options come next.