Who rules real-time search? A look at 11 contenders
Real-time search engines have proliferated over the last month, with a series of launches from start-ups like Topsy, almost.at and Scoopler. The companies are hoping to edge in on a space that Google co-founder Larry Page has admitted is a weakness for the search giant…. Continue Reading
Wave: Google’s take on the future of communication
Finally unveiled after years of development under the codename “Walkabout,” Google Wave combines popular features from across the web — feeds, shared documents, photo galleries, etc. — to redefine online communication. At least that’s the goal. Its creators, Lars and Jens Rasmussen (the braintrust behind… Continue Reading
FriendFeed is absorbing more Twitter users, and that’s good for Twitter
FriendFeed, the service that culls your activities on various social networks into a single stream, is seeing a surge in new users, at least from anecdotal evidence (including signups that VentureBeat’s staff is seeing).
The increase comes after FriendFeed redesigned its site last week so… Continue Reading
FriendFeed’s redesign has given them something to talk about
When FriendFeed launched its redesign on Monday, some users (like me) applauded the move as a step in the right direction towards a more real-time web experience. Others, simply put, hated it. But initial reactions are well, initial. Now that everyone’s calmed down a bit,… Continue Reading
Don’t like FriendFeed’s real-time speed? Eat my dust.
People hate change. That’s as true on the Internet as it is in real life. For proof, look at any Facebook design tweak over the past several years. Today, FriendFeed rolled out a major change of its own, moving its aggregation and conversations from a… Continue Reading
FriendFeed’s redesign combines publishing and IM better than Facebook or Twitter
Lifestreaming service FriendFeed is launching the most intuitive interface I’ve seen yet for sharing information with your friends. It’s like the new Facebook but with simpler filters for seeing only the Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, and much more from the friends that you care about…. Continue Reading
New FriendFeed interface to roll out Monday
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed some website hits coming from beta.friendfeed.com. This is the domain for the beta area of FriendFeed, which we reported on the existence of last year and which was eventually opened to everyone. But then FriendFeed moved all of… Continue Reading
Is the social stream the new email?
During the “Feed Me: Bite Size Info for a Hungry Internet” panel today at SXSW (moderated by VentureBeat’s own Eric Eldon) all the participants agreed that social streams of data are going to be an integral part of the web going forward. David Sacks, the… Continue Reading
FriendFeed gives your desktop an information morsel
Lifestreaming service FriendFeed is taking another small step today toward making information feeds easier to consume — it’s launching a simple desktop application that shows you real-time updates from the site. You can already get real-time updates from FriendFeed on your desktop through third-party applications… Continue Reading
New Facebook: Twitter + FriendFeed + 175 million users
When Facebook made an offer to buy Twitter back in November, it seemed pretty clear it was most interested in the real-time stream of information that is the service’s claim to fame. That deal fell through, but Facebook is moving ahead with the real-time information… Continue Reading
“Liking,” the hot social trend, continues with Likaholix
“Liking” an item on a social network is all the rage right now. You can do it on FriendFeed, you can do it on Twitter (though it’s technically called “favoriting” a tweet) and you can even do it on Facebook now. It works because the… Continue Reading
Facebook gives FriendFeed’s “like” button a thumbs-up
Facebook has been watching “lifestreaming” site FriendFeed closely, and today the larger company’s attention has resulted in a new FriendFeed-like feature in its news feeds. It’s a button called “like,” and it’s a one-click way to show your friends that you liked a link to… Continue Reading
Facebook and Twitter: There’s blood everywhere, but no one’s dying
Here we go again. Over the course of the last several months, we’ve heard that FriendFeed was going to kill Twitter. Then Twitter was going to kill FriendFeed. Then Facebook was going to kill FriendFeed. Now Facebook is going to kill Twitter. But something odd… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google sees results in Washington, sex offenders out of MySpace, Motorola’s big loss and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google is making friends in Washington — After Microsoft and AT&T’s lobbying power killed its Yahoo search deal, Google has proven to be the quick study in politics and now seems to have friends in high places…the highest places, the White… Continue Reading
Radar gets an iPhone app to better share media amongst friends
Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of websites and applications right now that let you share things with other people. Twitter does it, FriendFeed does it and Facebook does it, among many others. But while those are increasingly about sharing with as many people as… Continue Reading
With Twitter friend imports, FriendFeed again devalues Twitter’s actual website
There’s much ado about Twitter’s site traffic today — is it bigger than Digg’s or isn’t it? But the reality remains that Twitter.com’s traffic doesn’t matter that much because there are so many services out there that can (and do) pipe in and use Twitter’s… Continue Reading
Twingly launches microblog search — Twitter search with a sprinkle of Jaiku and a dash of Identi.ca
Blog search tool Twingly’s new microblog search, as a concept, makes a lot of sense. You enter a keyword in one search box and get results from services like Twitter, Jaiku and Identi.ca. But in practice there’s a problem — and it’s not Twingly’s problem… Continue Reading
Facebook clearly likes FriendFeed’s “Like” feature
A sharp-eyed reader of the blog AllFacebook noticed something very interesting in a video that Facebook recently published — a “Like” link underneath a feed item. Sound familiar? It probably does if you’ve ever used the social content aggregation service FriendFeed.
This functionality doesn’t appear… Continue Reading
Join us for some live Macworld Keynote coverage
Tomorrow at 9AM PST, Apple will hold its keynote address at the Macworld Expo. Myself and Dean Takahashi will be on hand to bring you any announcements from the keynote as they unfold live.
As usual, we’ll have a page on VentureBeat set up with… Continue Reading
FriendFeed says ‘SUP to some new services
We first wrote about FriendFeed working a new Really Simple Syndication (RSS) supplement that it was calling Simple Update Protocol (SUP) earlier this year. The idea was to speed up the way new content is pulled into the social aggregator. Today, FriendFeed has announced several… Continue Reading