FriendFeed, an awesome application with a simplified interface, is growing… FAST. Before I get into what’s what with FriendFeed, here’s some skinny on features and how it relates to other sites, offering similar services…

Commenting/threaded conversations for every post: This feature is strikingly similar to Pownce’s idea of allowing threaded conversations to posts… making these sites a little more like message boards than microblogs.

Aggregation of services: MyBlogLog aggregates services, and spews them out via a nice time line (check my Lifestream). This feeding a feed other feeds to feed the feed is a very common thing these days, SocialThing does it, Pownce kind of does it, Jaiku as well… MyBlogLog, a Yahoo! service, is the closest to FriendFeed.

Subscribing to Feeds of others: MyBlogLog… and pretty much every other site with members + RSS, but MyBlogLog specifically, as… it’s an aggregator.

Liking a post: Twitter, Pownce, Digg… shoot, everywhere’s got this.

What makes FriendFeed different?

Imaginary friends, taking stuff from wherever, compiling a single feed or a few feeds from it, and organizing what you read by creating “friends” for them. This is much like Google Reader, you know… adding stuff to your RSS feed reader? But you can have more than one… so this makes it a little more like FilterMyRSS, which actually I think it a slightly better way to handle this, because it’s just merely managing a custom URL/Feed that you can alter and add to whatever, and it can be de-noised at the same time.

So… What makes FriendFeed different?

Recommended friends (like Facebook)… Best of X (day/month/etc … like Redit). Well, what makes FriendFeed really different is the fact that I rattled off a sevens site names, and where I found features similar to FriendFeed’s… but obvioulsy these features are all on FriendFeed.

To make FriendFeed “King of the Mountain”, and just anihalate the competition, indirectly as it may be since they’re peace loving happy campers of the Internet, would be to add the following:

1. SMS/MMS Support
   That’s right, eliminate the need to use Twitter all together. They’re up only 80% of “The Time” anyway, so to hell with it. Bring on photo sharing support via cell as well, and you’ve got yourself an end-to-end elimination of Twitter, Twitxr, Twitpic, etc.
2. Related to #1: Allow for direct messages, and scheduled activity summaries to be sent via SMS and/or Email
3. Support geotagging
4. Create a FireFox plug-in for “Share this on FF”
   This will alleviate the need to use sites like Tumblr, Digg, Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia.com, Reddit… etc… etc
5. Related to #3, add a Stumble feature to the toolbar to show me random items that related to things I like.
6. Allow tagging of things I share
7. Start to grab the excerpt from blog-posts, via the RSS input
8. Give the option for some sort of customization through a dashboard similar to Tumblr.

That’ll about cover it… I mean, FriendFeed doesn’t really need AJAX awesome, or any other major infrastructure pieces, they have the best features from a good number of sites, and, interact with an even bigger number of them… so, to wipe Twitter off the map, and a few other sites that aren’t really needed… That’s the path of awesome. Unless I’m forgetting something…

As luck would have it, I was recently given the opportunity to test out a Nokia N95 8GB (link) and pit it against my Nokia N95-3 (link), the 3G US release of the N95. At first look, you can see the obvious. The 8GB has a larger screen, comes in a sleek black housing, and is a little bulkier than the 3G.

The very first thing that I noticed about the 8GB is the screen slider. Compared to the 3G, it’s flimsy feeling, lacking that stable, sturdy feel I like so much about the 3G. Why would Nokia do such a thing?

Otherwise, the phone is awesome. It’s fast, it’s filled with great features, strong hardware, and 8 GIGS of storage! Granted, I have an 8GB micro-SD card in my N95-3, so that point is a little moot, but, it is handy to have space on a phone, no matter what. The 8GB also shipped with the updated firmware software that I’ve since downloaded and installed on my 3G.

I’ve raved about the N95 in comparison to the iPhone for months. The camera, the ability to do real video, the interface, software and features, the fact you can take out the batter and SIM card at will, use standard USB and headphone plugs to interface with the handset, and the Nokia PC Suite sofftware that comes in the box for the the phone… all awesome, and both the 8GB and the 3G boast the same awesome.

Nokia N95 8GB price: $595.00 (Froogle, average)

Nokia N95-3 w/ an 8GB microSD Card:$565.00 (Froogle, average)

The benefit of the N95 8GB is obviously the larger screen, which is very pretty, but the fact that it’s very flimsy, compared to the N95-3, and mixed with the inability to add more memory to it? I’m going to be happy with the N95-3 with the smaller screen, and a 16GB microSDHC card when it becomes reasonably available.

It’s not a mystery, I’ve loved Nokia as a cell company for their innovations in mobile technology since they introduced games on cell phones with their 5xxx and 6xxx series models in the early 2000’s. In fact, in the past 8 years, I’ve had Nokia handsets at the ready or on the wish list… Though I’ve settled for a Sony/Ericsson (once) and had an HTC handset for about a year, I always found myself wanting some bad ass piece of awesome that Nokia was about to release, or just had released.

Currently - I tout the N95-3 (US version of the N95) with blazing fast 3G and HSDPA data support, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera, video, removable/upgradable microSDHC card (currently housing an 8GB beast), super long lasting LiIon battery (I have two), a slew of awesome Symbian S60 and Java-based applications - including games, and fancy pants tools that marry the hardware and software seamlessly to bring you an absolute great mobile-computing experience.

From all this, I’ve found that everyone that has a Nokia handset, preferably the N95, should have these apps installed and used liberally:

1. Sports Tracker (available here) - This application uses the accelerometer and GPS to bring you an awesome companion to your workouts. Features include:
   1. GPS tracking of your route
   2. Altitude/Speed/Duration logging
   3. GeoTracking of photos taken during your walk/run/ride/etc
   4. Route saving
   5. Workout Diary - summarizes and logs
   6. Sharing online

   This is when it gets down right f**king cool. A year ago, April, Digital Urban, did a write-up on using the data collected in Sports Tracker for GeoRadness in Google Earth, creating a whole “new” application all together. I’d like to coin this, Life Mappery… All in all Sports Tracker is an application that can be used to track and geotag “You”, which is (again) awesome.

2. ShoZu (available here) - This application is available for a LOT of phones, but the N95’s handy-snappy-FAST GPS + Camera + ShoZu is a friggin’ great combination. Auto-GeoTagging of photos and videos taken, then uploaded to your file sharing app of choice (Flickr), makes for even more awesome. I spent about 20 minutes setting up Tiwtter, Flickr, Twitpic, and the account - including installation of ShoZu on the phone. I immediately adopted the app’s behaviors on my handset as “the way it should’ve been all along”.

   Their developers are definitely people who wanted to make sure their application integrated effortlessly with your phone’s existing interface, just making it “more gooder” than it was before you installed it, and it shows.

3. Nokia Communication Center (available here) - First of all, Nokia’s PC Suite is pretty sweet, but adding this extension to their already awesome PC/MAC interface? Oh boy. This boasts a near real-time interaction with your handset’s messaging (SMS & MMS) - allowing you to read, reply, forward and send new messages to contacts through a robust, but lightweight, desktop-based application.

   You can also manage contacts (edit, add, delete), send emails, and compose an MMS message, if you wish… and quickly!

4. Conversation (available here) - One of the advantage the iPhone has over the Nokia N95 (Symbian S60, really) is threaded SMS messages. Well… Conversations takes care of that, and one-ups it by threading MMS into the mix as well. One of the features I like about this the most is, the ability to mass delete entire threaded conversations without sifting through messages in the normal list view (so you can axe all your GoogleSMS queries at once, etc).

   It embeds itself right into your Contacts feature, as the first sub-menu item. So, all you have to do is select “Contacts” then push right once, and you’re there. I have mine set up as a main shortcut, replacing what was previously “Messaging”. Great thing is, it doesn’t replace messaging, allowing you to use either medium for interaction! Just rad.

5. MOSH (available here) - Short for “MObile SHaring”, MOSH is an online community where people upload, collect, and download tons of great stuff. Mobile themes, ringtones, games, apps, widgets, video, images… You name it. I grabbed my current theme from MOSH’s website, as well as a few great time killing games and some pretty sweet apps that are just plain fun to have. The application is accessible via the web, as well as through the handset, making it for an all-around quick-to-access experience, so you don’t have to kill a load of time loading up your handset with neat stuff.

Of course, there’s also Qik, Google Maps (great for traffic reports), Gmail, Google Search, Fring, and YouTube… I guess the only thing that’s really missing is a way for me to uh… make a cup of coffee with my cell at this point.

I need to get something cleared up.

What the hell is up with Apple users, and why in God’s green Earth would you purchase an iProduct? I’ll give you this, the MacBook is “just another laptop” that looks neat and is about the only tech-standard item you can purchase from Apple Inc. But this isn’t really about the MacBook, in fact, if this were about the MacBook - I’d probably have a hard time coming up with more than one or two bad things to say about it.

This is about the EPIC FAIL of the iPhone, and all the Lemmings that still love this damn thing. I don’t get it.

1. No Video Recording? … STILL?

2. Weak ass camera? … STILL. 2 Megapixels and no front-facing camera? Say “bye bye” to Video Teleconferencing in REAL 3G service areas (outside of the US)

3. No MMS… STILL

4. Copy/Paste on a touch sensative screen makes sense… Oh, it’s not there.

5. I bet it’ll fit in the old iPhone cradle and such, right? … NOPE!

6. 16GB version! WOW! Don’t they make a 80GB iPod?  Or better, I know there’s a 32GB iPod Touch out there.

7. Can’t remove the battery, still, and you’re looking at a full finger print version with a high gloss back to go with the front now.

All this points to squeeze every last $100 bill out of your pocket and keep you coming back for more sodomy by a company that claims to be innovative. The only innovation they’ve had is … Invent MP3’s… no wait… um… Invent MP3 players, no… um… Oh yea, the ONLY FEATURE iPHONE HAS TO OFFER:

Multi-touch.

Sorry, but that’s a load of crap. I’ve played with Multi-Touch - I think it’s neat, but it needs to interface with TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY.

- My thoughts after reading this: http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-3g-hands-on/