Facebook acquires FriendFeed: Also Relevant for Company Information

nano-logo The big news in the Web 2.0 world is, of course: Facebook is taking over Friendfeed.

Lately there has been lots of buzz about the war between Twitter and Friendfeed, between Twitter and Google, and between Google and Facebook. Oh yeah, Microsoft is also playing along, by taking over Yahoo en starting Bing.

For starters, I'm happy with Facebook's move. The Web 2.0 will converge (or is it already?) and still is a step in that direction. As a user of Facebook and Friendfeed I hoped they were merge in time. Although current plans don't seem to point in that direction.

Secondly, we all see the 'real-time web' as the future. Friendfeed contributed to this movement. Friendfeed also nicely merges all my and that of my friend's/follower's information streams in one neat stream. Facebook has been copying this FF feature, but is now basically paying for it.

Finally, and this is what I wanted to get at, these movements are interesting for companies as well. Not because their employees are using these tools to get things done. And not just because these tools help you harness network effects making you more competitive as a company, as opposed to companies not using them. But because it helps you understand how employees are consuming information externally and internally. Compare Friedfeed or Twitter with your corporate news on the intranet. Is new bi-directional at the company you work for? Is it 'real-time'? And, one step further: Can you as an employee merge all the streams of information into one personal stream? Information coming from SAP, Sharepoint, network shares, feeds, etc. In most companies this is not the case. But it is the future. Time to get to work!

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