FriendFeed is a News Feed-like social network which Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) had acquired in 2009. It is used by people to share links, photos and posts in a “customized feed.” In a recent blog, Facebook has announced that it would do away with FriendFeed and it would be no longer available to users from April 9. The reason for the shutdown has been cited as a rapid fall in the number of its users.
In its statement to Re/code, Facebook has thanked the users for supporting FriendFeed for so many years. However, given the fact that very few people are using the service now, it would be in the best interest of everyone that the service be closed down permanently.
People who are still using FriendFeed to share posts would not be able to do so post April 9. This shutting down is merely a reflection of how the scope of social media has transformed completely over a period of last 5 years. Five years back, when Facebook had acquired FriendFeed for $50 million, it was considered to be a huge deal. Here one may note that, last year, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.
FriendFeed was founded in 2007 by 4 people, Bret Taylor, Paul Buchheit, Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh, all former Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) employees. Post-acquisition, they went on to assume senior roles in Facebook in the engineering and product teams. Its co-founder, Bret Taylor, went on to become the Chief Technology Officer of Facebook.
When Facebook had acquiredFriendFeed, it already had NewsFeed. The purchase of FriendFeed was made solely with a view to boost the existing product. Also, they could rope in a team which would help them deliver better content and real-time updates for its users since after the acquisition, along with the founders, all the Friendfeed employees became Facebook employees. Since then, the team has actively supported Facebook in terms of its various search initiatives and Facebook Platform.
