Friendfeed’s Paul Buchheit talking in riddles over future plans

As long time readers will know, I have been a champion of Friendfeed for quite a while. I have almost two and a half thousand subscribers there and have connected with some amazing people.

Friendfeed after Facebook’s acquisition

However, following Facebook’s acquisition, Friendfeed has been left to gather dust. Certainly, many of the users I used to connect with, have either left Friendfeed or hardly use it now. Take Robert Scoble for instance.

Scoble is the most followed or ’subscribed to’ user on Friendfeed. Here’s what he said recently;

“I can’t keep focusing on a site that isn’t getting developed. Sorry. That’s not what I do.”

Friendfeed co-founder Paul Buchheit talking in riddles

Scoble is not alone! Last weekend, a number of other high profile users started openly debating its future. This was Friendfeed’s opportunity to kill the rumours. Instead, a PR-Speak message was left by Friendfeed co-founder Paul Buchheit. Sadly, Buchheit has raised more questions than he answered.

Here’s what he said:

There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage — if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge :)

Friendfeed users ignored

After that comment, Buchheit was obviously asked to clarify what on earth he was saying – ya know, in English!

Sadly, he declined. In fact, at the time of writing this, he’s not replied to a single question. It’s worth remembering here that most tech commentators saw Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed as a ‘talent grab‘ – a way to buy great quality people. Few people believed Facebook had any interest whatsoever in the Friendfeed platform.

For example, is his reference to “bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world” saying, as some suggest, that they are exclusively developing Friendfeed as an ‘add-on’ for Facebook (the larger world) now?

Equally, these riddles and the silence that followed, are of no help to the developer community, who have asked if they should still be investing their time, developing apps for Friendfeed. Again, no reply.

Friendfeed – Not so ‘friendly’ any more

It’s sad that many of the users that Paul Buchheit (and his colleagues) are now ignoring, are the same Friendfeed users, who helped him build the platform’s user base – A platform they have reportedly sold for tens of millions of dollars. Way to treat your users guys!

Whilst I now spend hardly any time on Friendfeed, I’m NOT deleting my Friendfeed account. I am going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Who knows? Like most people, I have no idea what Buchheit was talking about and the future of Friendfeed remains to be seen. It is still an amazing platform.

Do you speak Buchheit’s language?

I’ve spoken to half a dozen people about what Buchheit has said and none of them could agree as to what his actual message was.