A blast from the past, here: FriendFeed was a social service that enjoyed a brief flurry of fame – within tech circles, at least – in 2008 and 2009, before being bought by Facebook in August 2009. Now it’s being shut down. “We’ve been maintaining the service for the last five years, but usage has been declining steadily and the community is now just a fraction of what it once was,” explained Facebook in a statement.
“Given this, we’ve decided that it’s time to start winding things down.” FriendFeed was pioneering in its time: when it launched in March 2008 it aggregated Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social services’ posts into a single feed (Bulletin, 18-Mar-08), although a feature added in June 2009 to let users upload and share MP3 files with their friends was more controversial for music rightsholders (Bulletin, 25-Jun-09). But in features like its Like button and news feed structure, FriendFeed has been a strong influence on what Facebook has become since 2009.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…