It never fails.

No sooner than we have had a round of bitching about one social media service than we turn right around and start on some other one. In this case; specially for me, Twitter has ceased for now to being the bitching darling of the tech blogosphere, only to be replaced without even losing a breath by FriendFeed.

The whole rigmarole was started in a post by Louis Gray who made some valid points but all in all it has proven to be more of a great linkbait on an otherwise boring post holiday weekend. Among others that have picked up on his post are Stowe Boyd and Alan Patrick who have both weighted in with equally points of view.

One of the points that Louis raises is that FriendFeed is to noisy for newcomers and they end up either going into information shock or run screaming for Twitter. The suggestion that Louis has is that FriendFeed needs a lite version for the n00bs to play with when they first sign up. Stowe quite rightly points out that this simple version already exists – it’s called Twitter. As Alan points out in his post

For what its worth, in my case there was just too much “there” there – Friendfeed was the classic device for turning a stream of news into a sewer of stuff I didn’t want to see. In fact it was Friendfeed that first made me realise Filtering would be key in future. Louis Gray suggests they now need to have a Friendfeed Lite option – but I would argue that’s called Twitter.

The fact is there is too much available on FriendFeed but the user interface that have chosen to go with; and shows their Google roots, is equally to blame. I have said from the very beginning that the biggest problem with FriendFeed is its interface

With FriendFeed you can see why the early adopter crowd fell in love with it. The interface is clean and simple; which considering the fact the people behind it came from Google isn’t surprising. This is the type of interface that can get early adopters all hot and bothered. It is the no muss and no fuss approach that is the key for them for a service to be worth spending time with.

The problem is that just because a user interface gets one crowd where they live doesn’t mean it will do the same for a larger crowd – especially if that crowd isn’t technology oriented. I have said before here that as long as FriendFeed keeps its spartan look the chances of it being attractive to the Grandma Lizzy’s and Uncle Bob’s is very very slim. I still stand by that assumption. The early adopters may not like eye candy but I can tell you this I would bet the regular internet users do.

The biggest problem with the interface is  that at some point everything seems to blur into one solid mass of text and pictures. For most people this non-delineation of individual items; and their sub-items, is extremely confusing – and people don’t like to be confused about something they are trying for the first time.

FriendFeed is one of those prime examples of a social media service that has created something that is ideal for the early adopter crowd of the tech blogosphere. The only problem is that this is an exceptionally small; albeit vocal, segment of the web. Hell it’s a small segment of the whole Web 2.0 / social media / bogging world. By designing the service for the limited sensibilities of that segment FriendFeed can appear to be elitist and that doesn’t go over well with a more mainstream crowd.

As Sarah Lacy says in her post about this

As Louis says, the company has instead relied on bloggers and tech publications to spread the word. That is myopic and naive. It’s one thing to be a lean startup with no marketing department. It’s another to pretend even the biggest cheerleaders in the Valley ecosystem will be enough to make your company a mainstream product. After all, early adopters tend to treat Web startups like fads. It’s the “real people” who build a sustainable, real business. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook– they all get that and that’s why they don’t cater features to the Valley elite’s power users.

I would be willing to bet that if FriendFeed rather than sneaking in new features under the radar, was to take some time and redesign themselves from the viewpoint of mainstream instead of the rarefied early adopter side there would be a definite uptake in users. There is no need for a lite version – we already have that. Nor do I believe that we need to see more tabs to show us stuff as we grow into the service.

As true as the old saying of keep it simple stupid might apply to a lot of things in this case keeping it too simple has proven to be a detriment and it would be a same to lose such a great service because of design myopia.

[pic courtesy of LOLcats]