Nothing lasts forever (and why I’m back to blogging)

Now that I’m one day out from Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, I’m starting to see the move through a less emotional lens.  Do I still feel like the FriendFeed team sold us out?  Absolutely.  Is it their fault, though, that all the work we’ve put into our FriendFeed accounts might vanish one day?  I’m afraid not.

The fact is, nothing lasts forever, and the FriendFeed sale has made that more apparent to me than ever.  Money talks, and not just for small startups but bigger companies, as well.  If a product or venture isn’t making money, it either needs to start or it needs to disappear – that is what is in the best interest of the investors or shareholders.  And unfortunately, while we the customers help these companies grow, they don’t answer to us.

I fear for the future, now.  FriendFeed is not the only service I use on a regular basis and it certainly isn’t the only free service I use.  What if AOL decides one day that the AIM servers aren’t worth keeping on?  What if Twitter can’t monetize, its investors become impatient and it sells in a way similar to FriendFeed?  The only platform I can truly depend on to stick around is my blog, which is why I’m going to bring it back into the fold again.  The blogosphere needs to become a bigger piece of my conversation pie because, honestly, my trust in microblogging has been shaken.

If you’re a FriendFeeder with a blog, I would love to connect with you and toss your feed into my Google Reader list.  Leave me a comment and maybe some other visitors will subscribe to you, too.

Remember again – nothing lasts forever.  Especially things that are being given to you for free.  Choose the place you converse and make connections wisely, because it might not be around tomorrow.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • TwitThis

Posted by Shawn at 10:17 pm on August 11th, 2009. View Comments
Categories: Facebook, Twitter, Web 2.0, friendfeed, social media. Tags: , , , , .

  • I agree, nothing lasts forever. One of the lessons I learned as a child, because we moved a lot, is to keep necessary items to a minimum (pack light). Another suggestion is to do what many financial investors do and that is to spread your work over a number of places so in an event of loss, you won't lose everything. One example, I send pictures to my family. Should my house burn down all is not lost.

    Thanks for sharing!
  • disqusbeta
    wise post, i too felt shaken, i can't have a blog because i haven't got much in my personal life to write at a blogging scale and i don't have any social account the ones i have are anonymous type i don't want to be tracked by people i hate/ i don't like, so i was doing this nibble logging thing at twitter and friendfeed but friendfeed's decision shook me and i even wrote on friendfeed that it would be better to have a P2 blog than going in for facebook( social account, again i don't want to be tracked down) even though i am no celebrity
  • orangwutang
    Great post! I am an American lawyer living and working in Vietnam for the past 2 years. I use Friendfeed, Twitter, Facebook, etc., but my main avenue is a blog I write chronicling my experiences in Vietnam and the places I've been since I moved here (Myanmar - where I happened to be when Typhoon Nargis hit, Tibet, etc.). My blog is at www.orangwutang.com, and my Twitter and FF usernames are also both orangwutang.

    Thanks for this great idea!
  • Shawn -- good point. It is hard relying on some service -- especially a free one -- to store your content and to be your window on the world. It is nice that we can have self-hosted blogs and be the masters of our content and make sure our interactions get out. This has motivated me to get back to blogging too. So, check me out:

    ------
    Travis B. Hartwell
    Software Toolsmith

    Blog:
    http://www.travishartwell.net/blog

    Where to find me:
    http://www.travishartwell.net/blog/static/where_to_find_me
  • Perhaps this 'change' will result in us finding a way to share the social-net pie rather than relying on a private co to do the heavy lifting for us. Like your idea of searching for an alternative/ clone that we all contribute to.
  • I don't know if you remember PopFly by Microsoft. It was a dev sandbox a la google gadgets. MS, to the best of my knowledge, shut it down and said AMF. Agreed-free is not free, at least it's not free for long. If no ads, you very well could be a number, i.e., a tool to prove value for a prospective buyer.
  • Is that so true though. Who maintains your sever space? If you do so yourself then you are 100% correct. But, if you don't then what if that company decides they don't want to keep it anymore and just pull the plug without letting you know. Yes, I know that pretty much will never happen, but still.
  • If my hosting company suddenly folds, I could just go to a new one, restore my WP database and only lose a day or so. I'd still have the same content and would still be at the same URL. In that scenario, at least I wouldn't have to start from scratch.
blog comments powered by Disqus