This article was published on December 22, 2009

FriendFeed Traffic Continues To Crater – Is This Cliqset’s Moment?


FriendFeed Traffic Continues To Crater – Is This Cliqset’s Moment?

For the much beloved FriendFeed, the end is in sight. Ever since Facebook bought the firm and turned it into their technological playground, FriendFeed has been hemmoraging traffic.

Since the August acquisition by Facebook for some $50 million, FriendFeed has lost some 500,000 monthly visitors, nearly exactly 50% of their traffic. It continues with visits, with FriendFeed losing 1.8 million monthly visits from 3 million, all in the last four months.

Embedded below is a graph from Compete showing the last four months of unique visits to FriendFeed. Of course, this comes as no small surprise, once Facebook bought the service people bemoaned its loss of independence. Some surely left for Twitter, but is there a group of ex-FriendFeed users looking for a new home that has a similar flavor?

friendfeed

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

A startup that has long been nipping at the heels of FriendFeed is Cliqset. Through three major redesigns Cliqset has moved towards a FriendFeed like interface, with an admittedly very different implementation. Is this Cliqset’s moment?

According to Compete, Cliqset is still struggling to find its audience. However a recent interview with the President of Cliqset Darren Bounds enlightened us that Cliqset has found a growing audience in the wake of their most recent redesign, and that user growth and retention have both exploded.

Coincidence? Perhaps Cliqset and FriendFeed are dancing partners and had no idea. Cliqset’s version three was the most similar to FriendFeed yet, and with the complete collapse of FriendFeed, perhaps we are seeing a migration.

Whatever happens, FriendFeed has moved from small player to small sandbox for Facebook to play with. Better to piss off the six nerds in FriendFeed then to make 100 million mad on Facebook. If Cliqset was planning on getting its numbers up, now just might be their window of opportunity.

Get the TNW newsletter

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

Published
Back to top