Are they the same? No. Are they competitors? Maybe.
Background
In 2008 I had decided I was going to start twittering more, I felt like my peers were leaving me behind as I 
had tested it out in 2006 and just left it as I just wasn’t that keen. I finally got into twitter one day in late February 2008, and for the most part I do enjoy Twittering.
Friendfeed all of a sudden pops onto the scene and again I took a little while to hop onboard but last month I finally yielded and hopped onto 
Friendfeed.
I like it for the most part, but I still wonder how* I will fit Friendfeed into my daily routine.
*Please don’t take this to mean I don’t understand the Friendfeed value proposition, I do get it.
With Twitter you can initiate small conversations (micro blogging) and have a whole conversation spontaneously startup out of one catalyst but with Friendfeed you either have to find a conversation that is occurring and was initiated by one of the A/B-list bloggers or you need to have a conversation with yourself because a) you need loads of traffic to have a community across multiple platforms and b) Friendfeed does little to encourage true cross-pollination between different (read junior) members of the community.
This is not the case with Twitter. On Twitter what I say comes up on my ‘Wall’ and on everyone who subscribes to me. This can mean hundreds of people can see what I say instantly plus if you have left your settings on Twitter to default Twitter publishes all your posts/comments/twits to the front page as they happen giving you an equal opportunity to reach new users and attract new subscribers. I don’t see this ability to facilitate interaction within Friendfeed like Twitter does, and the area where I think Friendfeed tried to achieve this is the right-hand menu where they show other FriendFeed subscribers.
However since the same subscribers always show up as Allen over at CenterNetworks points out this feature is rather useless to anyone that So if you subscribe to TechCrunch because 1,000s subscribe to them they will always be on your right-hand list of subscribers. This mean none of the others you subscribe to get a chance at promoting their service. This means us many sites don’t get any face time even among those who value our IP/commentary.
Friendfeed essentially makes popular kids more popular and keeps the poor kids poor.
If Friendfeed were to democratise their right-hand menu utilising even the most basic implementation such as randomising the right-hand menu so that everyone gets a chance then I think FriendFeed still wouldn’t be the same as Twitter (of course) but they would none the less compete on one of the biggest reasons I use Twitter which is the chance to meet new people, read what others are saying and learn about new services/ideas.
What do you think?
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