What is FriendFeed?
FriendFeed is a social media aggregation, curation and bookmarking website and service that allows users to share content from multiple social media sites and networks. It was launched in 2007 and acquired by Facebook in 2009, although it continued to operate as a standalone service until it was shut down in 2015.
FriendFeed enables users to discover, collect and share posts from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, blogs and other sites all in one place by importing and aggregating updates into a single feed. This allows people to keep up with multiple sources and conversations without having to check each social network individually.
Some key features of FriendFeed include:
- Aggregation of content from multiple sources into a single feed
- Ability to comment on and discuss posts
- Like or dislike posts to help surface popular content
- Hashtags for discovering topics and interests
- Groups for users to connect around shared interests
- Bookmarklet to easily share web pages
- Integration with third-party sites and services via open API
FriendFeed gained popularity among early social media adopters and technology enthusiasts as a way to improve the discovery of interesting social content. While it eventually shut down after being acquired by Facebook, some of its features for curating and discovering content across networks paved the way for future social media aggregation services.