← NurseHacker: Social Software Tips, Tricks & Hacks By And For Nurses

Healthcare Reform on Twitter →

How to Use FriendFeed to Enhance & Organize Twitter Chats

July 27th, 2009 | FriendFeed, Twitter

One of the ways more people are using the micro-sharing service Twitter are joining what are called Twitter Chats or tweet chats. For those of you who have been participating in tweet chats, you know that they can become rather noisy and unwieldy when it comes to sorting through the conversations. Add to that, Twitter’s search isn’t the most reliable.

FriendFeed offers a way to help focus conversations around a specific topic and can be used to help organize tweet chats without disturbing their normal flow. Many people who use Twitter don’t use FriendFeed – the most frequent claim is that it’s too cumbersome or they just “don’t get it.” Fair enough. Perhaps that an educational opportunity for the FriendFeed team.

So, to help illustrate the value of using FriendFeed in conjunction with Twitter, I’ve put together this quick-and-dirty demo (expand screen at lower right corner) [link if not viewable].

Free online screen recorder

There are many nuances and features that aren’t necessarily obvious to newcomers to FriendFeed. Twitter’s appeal is its brutal simplicity. FriendFeed takes a bit more getting used to and some time to fully appreciate what it has to offer. Dovetailing FriendFeed and Twitter can produce a synergy that combines the social rapidity of Twitter with the conversational expansiveness of FriendFeed.

If you moderate tweet chats, try it out and let me know what you think.

@NurseHacker

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

  • Phil,

    Nice presentation. Sparked some thinking for me.

    To capture the entire tweet stream for a Tweetchat using FriendFeed, wouldn't the participants in the chat all need to have a FriendFeed account (or, minmally have FF accts linked bi-directionally to their Twitter accounts if they chose to participate via Twitter?)

    Also, do you think FriendFeed could handle the velocity of a #hcsm or a #journchat, both of which often operate at 1 tweet every 6 seconds (average) to more than 1 tweet every 3 seconds for popular topics?

    Any ideas on how long FriendFeed maintains search archives? I saw the link/embed options but those are tied to a FF database. Are there export options where one can export a hashtag conversation for a specific time range/date?

    Cheers,

    Tom
  • Great video - seems like a very comfortable way to work the power of freendfeed into the familiarity of twitter.
  • Nick -

    Thanks. As FF add more features, especially to its search, the options for extending the conversations will expand.

    Whether FF is here in few years or not, it's the social interface that will probably be around.

    Phil
  • @Tom

    Great questions.

    No, not all users need a FF account - the point here is to offer the *option* to those who have accounts to extend the conversations and help to organzie them into topics. If everybody had FF accounts, the entire chat could just be held on FF :)

    You can import a Search.Twitter feed for the hashtag (in fact I've done it for:

    #hcmktg - http://friendfeed.com/hcmktg-on-friendfeed

    #hcsm - http://friendfeed.com/hcsm-friendfeed

    Currently, I don't think FF supports time period search. That would extend how to organize even farther. I'll see if I can crowdsource that question.

    Here's the point:

    We're not looking for a substitute to Twitter for these chats - only an enhancement and a way to bring *some* order.

    Phil
  • Phil... as always... you're on the cutting edge. The method you've demonstrated may, on the one hand, fragment the conversation between two services, yet, on the other hand, actually doubles the conversation by leveraging two communities. Nice. And, on friendfeed, the conversation seems to remain in string format (all replies to a topic tied under the original post.)

    Can't wait to collaborate with you further re: FriendFeed and it's application for all of health care...especially the general workforce population. There's a lot of voices not being heard because they do not know how and are likely intimidated by the learning curve.

    Also, nice work on your screencast. Two other tools to consider for screencasting:

    My favorite: http://jingproject.com - (by TechSmith..makers of Camtasia Studio).. free, very robust, free hosting with playlists, screen capture built in, etc. (pro version, very inexpensive, auto push to YouTube for vids and flickr for screen shots. Very cool. And, no, I am not paid to say that. :)

    Another is http://screencast-o-matic.com/ .. worth a look. I'd consider it under-rated.
  • Thanks, Jim.

    It's not a perfect solution (I don't think there is one). But at least it's a way to set up a cafe for specific topics/threads that can't be explored well in Twitter. Twitter's great for ambient intimacy, but not so much for lenghthy conversation.

    I actually shot it with Jing (screencast) but had problems with sizing the embed code. I used ScreenToast - easy and simple to use. As I do more of these, I'll have to invest in something more heavy duty. Thanks for the recommendations.

    PHil
blog comments powered by Disqus