FriendFeed (
) might not have close to the userbase of Facebook () or Twitter (
), but make no mistake about it: Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed has big implications for the social web. One of Twitter’s big advantages over Facebook to-date has been its real-time search, and Facebook has already indicated that they’re working to build a competitive product.
Of the many things FriendFeed has done well, search is at the forefront. Their real-time search engine is much stronger than Twitter’s in terms of interface and usability: it simply doesn’t have nearly the volume of content to be as valuable as Twitter search. However, that problem is immediately solved if you plug content from Facebook’s 250+ million members into it.
Combine that with FriendFeed’s team history – they previously built Gmail () and Google Maps () so they obviously know how to scale things to Facebook size – and you have what sets up to be a serious threat to Twitter.
Now, to be fair, FriendFeed and Facebook are spinning the deal primarily as a combination of two very talented teams (which is absolutely true) and the FriendFeed as we know it today may cease to exist when all is said and done.
But Facebook has been angling to challenge Twitter for some time. For example, a status update focused re-design, Pages that function like Twitter accounts, and upcoming privacy changes that will make the site far more of an open network. Add powerful search from FriendFeed on top of that and you’ve essentially duplicated Twitter’s functionality.
Twitter, meanwhile, just re-positioned itself as a real-time search player – or “the world’s water cooler” as we described it – when they launched their new homepage. Facebook, with its huge userbase advantage, would be a much bigger water cooler once its Twitter emulation is complete and search is also added to the mix.
Of course, Twitter has plenty of lock-in: users have spent years building up a following, so it’s not likely that simply adding features to Facebook is going to be a crushing blow. But it does potentially limit the ultimate opportunity for Twitter, as its utility could be a lot less readily apparent to potential new users if Facebook does the exact same things but on a much larger scale.
Do you think Facebook + FriendFeed is a big threat to Twitter? Share your thoughts in the comments.
