This article was published on November 26, 2008

Hubbub Launches a Desktop Client for Friendfeed


Hubbub Launches a Desktop Client for Friendfeed

Hubbub Inc, a new startup from London based consultancy webBackplane have created an intriguing new desktop client for my favorite social network Friendfeed.

The name stems from the idea that you create “hubs” which are essentially ‘groups’ and what the entire app revolves around. You can then insert individuals or “entire lists” of people from Friendfeed into these hubs.

Once you’ve added all the people or “bubs” you’d like to include in your new hub, you are then able to click their individual avatars where a radial menu appears highlighting each of that person’s services on Friendfeed. In the video (inserted below) you’ll see a demonstration of how you can then click on an individual service such as Last.fm which will then play that selected persons radio station on your desktop. You are also able to view individual streams of services for the individuals inserted into your hub, so checking up on a Friends tweets or latest blog posts is a piece of cake.

According to Mike at Techcrunch UK, the goal appears to be to allow other developers to make the most of the Hubbub API to create unique visual interactions using an individual’s FriendFeed data.

Clearly it’s early days and Hubbub will need to spend a bit more time illustrating the main features, benefits and goals of the product particularly from a desktop vs web point of view. That said, it is definitely an intriguing app and I look forward to being able to spend more time on it when they (hopefully) release a Mac version. It is also wonderful to see more use of the Friendfeed api particularly on the desktop where currently only twhirl and alert thingy exist to support Friendfeed – and not very well I might add.

Although in private beta, anyone can sign-up for the app which is currently Windows only. You’ll also need to have Silver Light 2 installed to ensure everything runs as expected.

Here are a few videos to give you a better idea of how the app works.

*update*

A few people on Friendfeed have tested out the app and the feedback thus far hasn’t been all too positive. As I said earlier however, it’s early days…

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Published
Back to top