Friendfeed gets $5m - congrats Paul Buchheit

FriendFeed looks like a potentially distributed version of Facebook, if used properly at an individual/friend/local level and evangelized properly as a company. I really like the relatively loose association between friends and services. Right now you have many of the photo/link sharing capabilities in Facebook tied down to Facebook-centric/based apps but FriendFeed allows you to transfer that level of interaction to highly specialized apps that have fairly focused goals.

The way I see the potential competition for Facebook from FriendFeed is by visualizing highly specialized apps connected together like nodes on a graph by the interaction between people who know each other in real life; the sum total of interaction between people brings equivalent value as Facebook does. I think Facebook creates this graph in exactly the opposite way: the individuals are represented as the nodes and the applications become the connectors. In both cases it is the interaction between the nodes that result in the edges of the node, but the impetus for placing a node on the graph are different - and this difference is ultimately to the detriment of Facebook at the moment as it puts Facebook at a disadvantage (the factual presence of all the highly specialized apps that are already popular at some level is what I'm referring to).

Facebook is one account and it enables you to do many things; these many activities are bound to Facebook. On the other hand it is more likely that you will have many different accounts at highly specialized apps/communities and the fact that you can connect the activity with other people gives FriendFeed an additional use over using Facebook.

The way these social graphs are created is a very significant distinction for the upside potential of FriendFeed and symmetrically the downside potential of Facebook. This can be further illustrated by picturing Facebook as a graph that grows from the inside out like how patches of mushrooms would grow, and FriendFeed is a graph that "condenses" from out of nowhere (I'm thinking of the bright yellow PbO2 condensation reaction from my chemistry days).

If I were a Facebook employee, I'd be terrified of FriendFeed as the interactions that arise from using FriendFeed are potentially more nebulous than what Facebook could hope to achieve. The value of the interaction between the nodes of the graph is the most overlooked principle in why social networks grow (this is reaffirmed for me each time I read about the next "Digg killer"!). I have a feeling that FriendFeeders know just how valuable this is...

most of it is self funded isnt it ?