Friendfeed and the downside of Free

Everyone wants to debate Free nowadays. In truth, free isn’t the right word because there’s obviously a cost to everything, even if it’s not monetary. Most people, however, just focus on the monetary cost. That’s why Google is “free,” despite the fact that it makes lots and lots of money by collecting everyone’s data. "Free" Web services aren't public utilities. Users invest lots of time and effort in them at their own risk.

Facebook buying Friendfeed reminded me of this. For the most part, this is a complete inside baseball story that shows how insular Silicon Valley is. In the real world, nobody cares about a niche sharing service like Friendfeed. But it built a product the geeks loved. Facebook even copied some of its features. What interesting is now that they’re part of Facebook, there’s little chance Friendfeed itself has a future. (Facebook and Friendfeed are non-committal.) Friendfeed’s small cadre of loyalists aren’t so happy about this.

In essence, Friendfeed’s founders got a few hundred thousand people to serve as a focus group for them to refine a product enough that Facebook was willing to pay them a presumably large amount of money to come work there. Those that invested lots of effort into building up a network on Friendfeed -- I'm looking at you, Scoble -- are left holding the bag. That’s too bad, but inevitable. The interests of the founders at some point diverged from the users. It goes to show, again, nothing is really free.

Comments

[Ben Kunz]

Pan out a bit, and all current network utilities (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter) risk obsolescence when humans learn to take their social graphs with them. This isn't a new idea -- Charlene Li wrote about social media "becoming like air" more than a year ago. But it reminds me of how when trains and electricity and roads were first invented, there were different subnetworks and protocols and designs all competing with each other ... until one commonality own out. Except for those Brits, who still can't drive right.

It's my social graph. All mine. The web sites that introduced me to the concept will rust and fade, but my graph will live on. It's easy to get snarky about FriendFeed becoming one more Silicon Wowwy buyout. Eventually, the other tools will go the same way.

Personally, my bet isn't on the "walled gardens" that try to own my relationships, but on the handy filters that will help me control my own network among multiple portals or entry points. Perhaps iTunes will have playlists for friends. I hear Apple is working on it.

[Bob Knorpp]

I think you clarified some things for me in this post regarding the free debate. The only way the "free" model works is by changing the currency. The customer HAS to ALWAYS pay SOMETHING in free models...information, opt-in, whatever.

You've also made it clear to me that there is a vast difference between "free" and "free samples." Someone giving away a free ebook and saying this is a loss leader is much different than a service like Facebook or online news sites that have a model of totally free service. In the former, you can justify free because the expectation is you will make it up with sales. With the latter, there is no such expectation. So you need to have the mindset, "What does the customer need to pay instead of money, that we will find valuable." In Facebook's case or Twitter's, it's clear that they should have been saying all along, "You can use our service, but know that we will be modeling and indexing your info for sale, the same way Google does."

Thanks for this, Brian. I think I'll expand more on my blog.

Bob Knorpp
Listen to The BeanCast Marketing Podcast
Posts every Monday at http://beancast.us

[free-ebook-download]

Thnx for the information

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who pays FB for all their services ?

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The interests of the founders at some point diverged from the users. It goes to show, again, nothing is really free.

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The interests of the founders at some point diverged from the users. It goes to show, again, nothing is really free.

[Round and Brown]

The interests of the founders at some point diverged from the users. It goes to show, again, nothing is really free.