This started out as a "simple" comment to Robert Scoble's post The second life of friendfeed.

I still use friendfeed to "play around" with ideas about how I want to interact with the web, as both a content consumer and provider. Nothing I've found (yet) can replace friendfeed's functionality, easy to explain "common interface" (WRT to twitter/feeds) and the simplicity/flexibility of their embedded pages and widgets.

Before Facebook (BFB) and the mass exodus, Friendfeed revolutionized the way I interacted with the web. I looked at the comments of the people I respected before I visited the site/page that was being discussed. For me, real-time search has nothing to do with friendfeed's value (I actually use FF paused). I love the focused search capabilities (title, user, # of comments and groups/lists). Come on how cool is that ..as long as you actually have content/comments to search?

I've used friendfeed (and it's API) to replace personal to do lists and bookmarks, blog comments, site feedback, and discussion/bulletin boards, all which I can manage in a single tool. It even pops the latest interactions to the top for me. Google Friend Connect and FaceBook Connect don't even come close to FF's ease of integration. Try using GFC and FB on a site that doesn't support javascript. FF's embeds are simple and the ultimate fallback is their image embeds, everyone can add them on almost any page, even inside Google Reader.

The built-in individual and group controls allow me to tweak accessibility without complex tool/widget specific constraints. No @, RT, #, DM and 140 char limit. No add this app to view external content (different for FB page vs profile) or archaic upload interfaces. No special list and follower management just to add a comment to someone's shared item. And all the data I add can be extracted back out at anytime (via the api).

I  recently saw an embedded twitter hashtag search with the title "Follow the conversation on Twitter.. use #XXX"... are you kidding me? Can your non-twitter friends follow "the conversation"? Plus it's public nature and lack of moderation is a spammer's dream! Try to explain Twitter or Google Wave to the people that already feel overwhelmed by their email inbox (95% of us). Then attempt to show them how much more "efficient" they'll become while they try to suck content through the "real-time fire hose". Fire hoses are used in movies to torture people for a reason!! As a side note: I believe real-time is critical for capturing conversations and initial reactions but most people work and even sleep once in a while. How much time do you actually spend in the flow versus navigating and searching it's results?

The future of the web will certainly involve search, content and comments, filtered using a topic specific set of trusted resources (friends, experts, websites etc). Personally I don't care what the entire Internet thinks, I want results from people and sites I respect. Louis Gray might be my "go-to guy" for the geek stuff, but I suspect he doesn't know @%#! about sailing or the best place for sushi in Boston (at least I haven't seen it in any of his posts.. yet). The sad thing is there are only a couple of key friendfeed features/fixes that would allow me to implement almost everything I think I need for both personal and corporate solutions. I feel like FF is so close, it seems like such a waste to walk away.

But I've seen this way too many times in my career... companies walk away from a fully functional tool/prototype that people can play with, give feedback and iterate ideas. Today it seems too easy to overhype visions of tools as the ultimate end-all be-all solution, especially when nobody can kick the tires or call BS.

Visions are just ideas and concepts.. vaporware. I'd much rather have something I can bang on, interact with and use my data to see if it meets my goals. The entire time I'm evaluating a solution I wonder will my wife, parents and non-geek friends be able to understand this and find value? Ultimately they represent the mainstream users, not us geeks. In three years, you won't find them standing in front of the real-time fire hose.

Update:

Louis Gray just wrote a nice post Finding Value Even If I Were the Last FriendFeeder...

Johhny Worthington chimed in with more reasons.. FriendFeed: All The Cool Kids Are Using It… And You Wanna Be Cool, Right?

Come on over and check it out.. I'm at http://friendfeed.com/chrismyles

Note: I only consider myself a part-time geek. I've been developing web content for six years but was unable to interact with it's readers (trust me it's a little hard from the middle of the ocean using only email through a coffee stirrer.. read more). I am attempting to find a balance within this "New to Me" socially connected world, without killing myself or being consumed by it in the process. I'm also trying to document my observations and issues before it all becomes second nature. During our trip, I missed living on the "bleeding edge"!

Oh yeah, I didn't even realize "second life" was a game.. you can't play online from the middle of the ocean either.

I've just updated this blog to take advantage of the new posterous theme engine..it's Very Nice. They don't support full Javascript (I'm used to Blogger) but they have some pretty cool functionality that allows access to some javascript features (ShowOnHover and ShowOnClick).

It is also possible to configure different css and non-post functionality based on the page the reader is on. For example, I show my full profile on the blog index page but "hide" the main info and allow access to it via a Show More link on the search, tag and post (show) pages. I'm still playing around with various options, like showing comments on other pages vs post page only (for accurate analytics data), but with Posterous you gain access to a lot of post data (like comments, number of views and the readers who favorited a specific post). Currently, the users that faved a post will appear below after you click on the faved link (currently there is only one).

I even played around with porting some Blogger templates and I love that all the information (including sidebar "widgets") is included in a single file. This opens up a lot of opportunities for me!! I also update the feed to feedburner so please update if you already subscribed.

I still have some issues to hash out and it takes a little getting used to a few of the idiosyncrasies, but I think people will be very happy with the new functionality. It's not JUST themes, you can do a whole lot more if you want to.

Great job Posterous... Thanks

I would be interested what other developers and readers think..

N. Tabiteuea, Kiribati

We've been out there.. way out there. For six years we traveled to remote corners of the globe on our sailboat. For you landlubbers, the changes in technology and the web have been gradual and maybe even unnoticeable. For me they are completely obvious and sometimes dramatic, like when you revisit the town you grew up in or see an old friend or young child and realize how much they've changed.

What's Changed?

What hasn't? Think about it, before we left (in late 2003) most phones were still used for calling people and real-time was something you got from your watch.

Social networks were in their infancy. Facebook was just getting started while we were crossing the 3400 miles from Mexico to the Marquesas (non-stop 24 days) and Twitter was ramping up while we were sailing around Australia (three years into our trip). You actually paid for software, the internet bubble had popped (and was still deflated) and you could find anything you wanted easily on Google. Even though Blogger was around most people were still managing their own sites using MS Frontpage (?!), blogs certainly weren't mainstream and microblogs didn't even exist.

Global Communication

Wireless phones have brought communication to all corners of the globe, including countries that couldn't afford the infrastructure required for land lines. In Indonesia even remote villages had access, so our line of site communication (VHF radio) was quickly replaced with a cell phone. In Saukin Sudan, one of the poorest countries we visited, I jumped as a loud phone rang while I was walking down a dusty dirt road. I was amazed as a man in ragged clothes reached for his cell phone while steering a donkey driven water delivery cart constructed from old 55 gallon drums. The only internet was a two hour bus ride away, it's speed ... like sucking molasses through a coffee stirrer (but we were connected!).

This guy had a cell phone!!
Our geoblogs from Sudan
More Saukin,Sudan Photos (pdf)

Our daily communication was a single email session usually lasting less than a minute at a whopping 10 Kb (with a K) per second. But It was perfect, it worked everywhere and gave us what we needed for weather, safety, and provided a quick update to our friends and family who may have been a little worried. Believe it or not we were pretty high-tech, we had backup systems, used Satellite images for mapping (before Google Earth) and made our own charts/guides for the areas that were off the beaten track where we liked to travel (no Lonely Planet guides). We developed multiple websites and blogs to help the next generation of travelers that may follow in our wake, sharing what we learned so others could avoid the common mistakes. We started with a manually updated website (from USB sticks) and ended with an automatic email based blog, photo and mapping solution that I developed.

So what's this blog about?

To start, it will be about the transition back into the world of the connected, what's changed, what's better and what's worse. I'm trying to figure out what to do next, evaluating businesses, technology, and products/apis to see what's missing and where I can add value. I want to use my unique perspective as a high-tech castaway to help bridge the gap between developers/technologists and main stream users. From where I am standing things sure got complicated for them while I was gone, and the gap between the two has grown significantly wider. I want to document the differences before they become second nature again.

There are questions: What is the most effective way to embrace new technologies without becoming consumed by them in the process? How should a new product be developed in order to satisfy early adopters without overwhelming main-stream users? If social networks are new content delivery mechanism, how can I manage my networks while still allowing time to develop new content? Now that I am "connected again" I can consume content as well as deliver it, so I'll be looking for the most effecient solutions to manage both sides of the fence.

About Me

Before sailing, I spent thirteen years as product manager/software developer delivering wold class solutions that changed the way people designed computers and complex electro/mechanical systems. I like to dig deep and fully evaluate ideas, issues and products before I commit to a solution (or develop a new one).

Re-integration will be a trip!

More info: FriendFeed or Posterous

Just testing plain text from UUPlus http://uuplus.com to see what happens.
 
This is how we emailed all of our Blogs to Blogger  (http://svbillabong.blogspot.com).

Our original BlurbBits prototype used uuplus' ftp service to update the map/blurb/photo template file from sea.
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UUPlus Webmail

Update: Misc Tips