Get ready for real time

I’ve always been a fan of FriendFeed and here at 1000heads we regularly use it to network our brand evangelists and aggregate their content (have a look at our STA Explorers room). However, Gmail creator and FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit has been explaining why he thinks the platform’s real time conversation capabilities will outstrip its role as an aggregating tool: “The open, realtime discussions that occur on FriendFeed are going to become a major new communication medium on the same level as email, IM and blogging.”

As the internet tends to move in cycles, I wouldn’t be surprised; back in the day, (painfully slow) live chatrooms were social media. Real time conversation has a momentum, subtlety, continuity and synaptic dynamism that just isn’t possible between distracted users dipping in and out of forum threads, blog comments and profile pages. At 1000heads we’ve been using real time conversation to conduct social media panels about tools, brands, ethics and word of mouth (most recently with a fantastic bunch of guys in the Middle East) and the nuanced, passionate nature of the discussions have proved its efficacy.

FriendFeed’s real time talk functionality has long been adopted by social media celebs, and with Facebook restoring real time updates onto home pages, and Plurk launching their Real Time Social Conversational Search tool, the big boys certainly seem to believe this will be a significant trend.

For brands, the interesting characteristic of real time WOM lies in its dual freshness and longevity: thanks to our sophisticated modern platforms, live conversations about products and brands will be safely stored, remaining searchable, influential, and open to repurposing and resurrection for years to come. This makes it all the more important for brands to ensure their WOM is as positive as can be, and as Buchheit says, real time also enhances the opportunities for brand evangelists to step in:

Facebook is still very much a closed world of its own. That’s sometimes useful, but other times I want the ability to interact with the outside world and also other systems. For example, if I post something on FriendFeed about a product that I’m using, often someone working on that product (or very knowledgeable about it) will join in on the conversation. That kind of thing can’t happen on Facebook.

This isn’t some holy grail; longer think pieces on blogs and non-instant platforms still have a different and equal value; but real time conversation will be an increasingly important part of the strategic word of mouth mix.

Big up Read Write Web for a great interview.

Brought into the world on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.