This article was published on August 11, 2009

Without Friendfeed where will we go for actual conversation?


Without Friendfeed where will we go for actual conversation?

129526 Radio discussion Bill of Rights_jpgIf there’s one thing about Friendfeed I have truly enjoyed, it’s the conversation. There simply hasn’t been a place online that has driven me to throw my opinions and thoughts into in depth discussions more than the little innovation machine from Silicon Valley, which yesterday announced they would be gobbled up by Facebook.

Most folk are likely to immediately suggest Twitter as an alternative conversation hub. Whether you and I like it or not, Twitter is NOT conversation. It’s announcements, announcements and more announcements with the occasional response, and that is great, but its not conversation.

While Facebook digests Friendfeed, we may see an increase in open discussion on the social networking behemoth but again, lets face it, its unlikely we’ll ever see the open discussion platform Friendfeed is/was.

So I ask you, where do you find the most healthy discussion? Is there such a place? The first place that comes to mind is Hacker News, but even there, its not really a community as such and its highly targeted to the developer/entrepreneur type.  There’s Digg, YouTube, etc. lets not even go there. Where else is there a genuinely awesome platform for open discussion across a variety of topics? Heck, any topic? The ability to integrate media (photos, video) into the discussions is a bonus. The only site that appears to not have me immediately dismissing it is the still in beta, Redux.

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