Why Did Facebook Acquire FriendFeed?

In case you missed it, as TechCrunch has reported, Facebook has acquired FriendFeed.

The question on everyone's minds is "why"?

Here's one theory. This is another escalation of the battle between Twitter and Facebook's News Feed. Both are lifestreaming/microblogging tools that capture the essence of real-time thought -- and data.

But where Twitter falls short is in the conversation. Threaded conversations just do not happen on Twitter. They are fragmented conversations that are most often seen to the public when you are following both sides of, and parties to the conversation.

On FriendFeed and Facebook on the other hand, replies, and therefore, conversations are threaded, creating streams of consciousness that are actually organized. Back when my Twitter and Facebook accounts were linked, I'd often get more responses to Tweets on Facebook than on Twitter, likely because of the way the News Feed handles status updates -- keeping reactions to those updates conveniently listed below each one. FriendFeed handles updates in the same way.

So at the end of the day, while Facebook may be acquiring FriendFeed for the talent behind it, the rationale is the same. There is a battle for the real-time data feed. And as of right now it's a two-horse race (Facebook v. Twitter).

UPDATE: Facebook just rolled out an improved real-time search (as reported by Mashable). My 'gunning for Twitter' hypothesis just got stronger.

Comments

[Tad Reeves]

Agreed. Twitter always has the advantage, however, of being available on the public Internet whereas Facebook is for friends-only. I.e. last night, when my power was out, I was able to use Twitter to strike up a conversation with other iPhone Twitter users, and find out how pervasive that power outage was -- conversing with people who were positively not on my friends list.

So, it will be curious to see how Facebook can use FriendFeed's model to extend out into the non-Facebook world (a world which is growing smaller by the minute, btw).

[Ross Kimbarovsky]

Ian - interesting observation. But I wonder how you'd reconcile Plurk in this horserace. Plurk handles conversations, but hasn't gotten much traction (it's been more popular than FriendFeed though).

[Ian Schafer]

Exactly right. And that's where Twitter has the advantage. And why this will be a battle that will be fought for some time.

[Ian Schafer]

Plurk's audience is certainly not US-strong, hence my ignorance of them as part of this conversation. FriendFeed's audience was pretty neglible as well -- but certainly very influential/connected (i.e. Robert Scoble, et al), for whatever that's worth. Which is why the talent aspect of this seems to be a key driver of the acquisition -- and the similar line of thinking that both companies have had.

[Kirk Skodis]

So your theory is that Facebook acquires FriendFeed for its similar approach? Then the net competitive advantage is just strengthening the team...?

And if that is their strategy, then what say you about Facebook's previous attempts to acquire Twitter?

[Gerard Babitts]

Or perhaps Facebook acquired FriendFeed to cut Twitter off from being able to do so? Considering both Facebook and FriendFeed are, as you point out, about threaded conversations and both are about a closed, permission-based following culture (unlike Twitter where I can lurk and "follow" anyone), I'm not sure what the acquisition really brings Facebook.

[Ian Schafer]

I think Facebook's team always needs to be strengthened to remain strong. Facebook's is a no-complacency culture, and this move would back that up. As far as Facebook's previous attempts to acquire Twitter go, it's more likely that would be an audience play for the full real-time enchilada. If you can't beat 'em buy 'em, if you will.

[Ian Schafer]

Great point. There's always the preemptive strike/Yankees/Red Sox motive, but that also seems like a naturally beneficial side-effect of the whole deal.

[Monica O'Brien]

Good thoughts. I wrote about this too: http://blog.monicaobrien.com/facebook-acquired-friendfeed/

I think it also has to do with Google, personally.

[Ian Schafer]

As they say, "the enemy of my enemy is my (facebook) friend".

[Stephanie Grayson (@Critiques4Geeks)]

Ian- I think your point re: conversation/threaded feed is very insightful. Although I hadn't thought about it to this extent before, it's true that when I'm having an exchange with someone in particular on Twitter, I do sometimes find myself RTing part or all of the last tweet I'm responding to in my reply, which of course significantly cuts into the 140 character limit. After reading your post today and then reflecting a bit, I realize I must sometimes feel a need to make a do-it-yourself thread! Ah- self-awareness is a good thing :)
Thanks for facilitating it!
Cheers,
Stephanie Grayson (aka @Critiques4Geeks)
Speech & Media Trainer (New York)

[Joakim Vars Nilsen]

Ian, nice article. Let´s think about it a moment. Twitter, a conversational tool that has got some traction. Friendfeed, where´s the stats showing people actually USE it. Not only just having it there corresponding with their tweets?

Facebook: Why buy something you already have? Their tech guys superior in some way?

This will be a Google vs Facebook fight. "Data vs People" fight. Twitter is really only a useful tool, for now... thanks to tweetie, twitterific, tweetdeck etc

[Jameel Gordon (@complexdiamond)]

Mr. Schafer,

I had to drop by to add a little more to my tweet and expand on your theory. Twitter is more of a threat because of it's popularity but let's not lose focus on the eyeballs and the advertising dollars just yet. This deal has Microsoft's fingerprints all over it. Let's think about the big picture.

We all know Microsoft owns a portion of Facebook and for that Bing is Facebook's search engine. Coupled with Yahoo! they now have more than enough eyeballs to fairly compete for Google's ad dollars. Friendfeed's "real-time" search capabilities when combined with Bing makes one helluva search engine. It also puts them at an advantage against Google. With the sales experience of Yahoo's team they now have a fair shot to level the playing field with Google.

Twitter is the wild card. If they fail, they fail. If they get acquired, things get really interesting for whoever purchases them. If they are left alone they will slowly develop into a giant similar to Facebook's rise.

Whoever champions "real-time" search has the brightest future because of the possibilities of its application. My money follows Twitter, unless...

What would happen if Microsoft buys Facebook?

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