A whole new FriendFeed

You might have noticed that FriendFeed looks pretty different today. We've just launched a whole new design, and a host of features and improvements that comes along with it.

We unveiled this look three weeks ago in beta and have been busy gathering feedback and making improvements. Here are some of the things you'll now find in FriendFeed:

Real-time

Forget the refresh button. All pages now update in real-time. You'll see your friends' photos and messages stream in as they're shared. Comments and likes also get displayed as they happen.

More powerful share box

You can now choose whom to share items with. Post something to multiple feeds or to just a few friends. You can also now direct message anyone who's subscribed to you.

Saved searches

Use FriendFeed's advanced search options to create filters for easy access to the friends and topics you care most about. Choose from filtering options such as seeing only entries that have certain keywords or entries with a certain number of likes or comments.

FriendFeed by Email

And of course, we had to add something new to the beta... and so we're introducing FriendFeed by email!

Post new items to your FriendFeed by emailing share@friendfeed.com. You can post to groups by emailing groupname@friendfeed.com, and you can direct message your friends by emailing username@friendfeed.com.

You can also choose to get your FriendFeed posts and comments delivered directly to your email inbox (see your email preferences), and even comment on entries simply by replying to messages.

While we've been testing this new feature, we've used FriendFeed groups to completely replace all our internal mailing lists. And we've loved it! It's been easier to share screenshots and links, and we've loved being able to post and respond to all entries from the comfort of our email inboxes. Try it for yourself instead of a mailing list.

And there's more...

As you spend time on the new FriendFeed, you'll notice other new things, such as:

• profile information
• more powerful "reshare" functionality
• you can now sign up for FriendFeed and find all of your friends with a single click from the FriendFeed homepage
• a "My discussions" feed that shows every entry you've participated in
• notification options for email, IM and our desktop notifier
• keyboard shortcuts for the most common commands

You might also want to check out our updated FAQ for things that have changed, such as groups. If you find a bug, let us know. And of course, we're still working on new features and improvements to this interface. As always, let us know your thoughts and comments in FriendFeed Feedback.

FriendFeed in Italiano and Türkçe

We've had a lot of requests for additional FriendFeed languages ever since we launched six new languages back in December. And today, we're really happy to add two more to that list — Italian and Turkish!

You can now select from Italian or Turkish, in addition to English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and simplified Chinese, from the dropdown at the bottom of every page or from your Account settings page.

We've already set up user-supported help areas for Italian and Turkish. These are on the existing http://friendfeed.com/ site, but both languages should also work in our new beta site (launched last week).

And of course, we're still working on more languages. Thanks to all our global supporters for your patience in the meantime. We hope you enjoy these new interfaces!

A new design for FriendFeed at http://beta.friendfeed.com/

We’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how to improve FriendFeed. And we’ve been tinkering with those ideas at http://beta.friendfeed.com.

Today, we’re opening up that site for you to try it for yourself.

It’s a pretty significant change for us, and we wanted to tell you a little about what’s new, and also, give you some insight into our thinking behind what’s changed.

We didn’t start out with the goal of a radical redesign. Our goal was simple. Make it more intuitive, more consistent, and ideally, more elegant. Here are some things that you'll find in the new site:

• A consistent look for entries, no matter where they originated from, to help you focus on what your friends are sharing
• A new and improved share box that can now post entries to multiple feeds
• The ability to send and receive direct messages
• Filters so you don’t miss a post from a certain friend or an entry about a specific topic
• Keyboard shortcuts for the most common commands
• And, one of the most defining features of our redesign — and what we believe will underlie everything about FriendFeed from now on: real-time. There’s no longer a need for refreshing — every view in FriendFeed now updates in real-time.

You can read a hundred reviews and look at a thousand screenshots, but for some things, only video will cut it. So here goes:

Once you see how cool the real-time updating is, see it on your own feed at http://beta.friendfeed.com. (You might also want to check out our tour or read our beta FAQ.) And of course, we’re still adding new features and ironing out bugs, so please let us know your thoughts and comments in the FriendFeed Beta feed and report your bugs here.

We want to get feedback from all of you before we flip the switch to make this redesign the primary FriendFeed interface. Our goal is to simplify the FriendFeed experience and put greater focus on the things that our users have found to be most valuable. We hope you’ll like it.

New options for the FriendFeed notifier

We've been listening to your feedback about the FriendFeed notifier, and we've added some new options. Now you can get a notification whenever someone comments on one of your posts. There's also an option to only receive notifications for comments from your friends.

These are the same options available for our IM notifications, another great way to stay up-to-date on all the activity in your FriendFeed.

If you haven't already tried it, give the notifier a spin at: http://friendfeed.com/settings/notifier and let us know what you think in the FriendFeed feedback room..

Choose the Red Pill

Back in the late '90s, I was impatient for Star Wars Episode I to finally be released, but a few months before its release my friends and I distracted ourselves by seeing a new flick called 'The Matrix'. Sitting in the front row of the theater, we had no idea what we were in for as we ratcheted our heads from left to right, reading the green phosphor text pouring across Neo's VDT. Who would have thought back then that a film released just under the nose of the most anticipated movie of all time would have such an impact?

Today, a decade later, Neo, Trinity and Morpheus still stand as a seminal work of mind-body philosophy and kick-ass cinematography. To all our FriendFeed friends who spend time jacked in to our own matrix, we salute you.

Sincerely,

Agent Fox

Norouzet Pirouz! Happy Nowruz!

FriendFeed has always been about user-generated content. Now we have our first user-generated logo!

Shayan, a FriendFeed fan, alerted us to this logo in celebration of Nowruz, the first day of the Iranian Solar Year, and we just couldn't pass up the festive opportunity.

We always appreciate suggestions and ideas, feature or logo-wise. Share yours in the FriendFeed Feedback room or email us at feedback@friendfeed.com.

And of course, may your New Years be healthy and happy and good.

Get real-time FriendFeed notifications on your desktop

If you like being in the know whenever there are updates to your FriendFeed, you'll probably enjoy our new desktop notifier. It's a super-fast download and takes just two clicks to install.

You can choose to get updates from your Home feed or any of your Friends lists. Clicking on the little window takes you to FriendFeed for easy viewing and commenting. And I love being able to drag the window to anywhere on my desktop.

The FriendFeed Notifier is an Adobe® AIR™ application that watches the FriendFeed real-time update feeds. As always, let us know your thoughts in the FriendFeed feedback room.

We think this new FriendFeed Notifier is pretty awesome. You should try it out: http://friendfeed.com/settings/notifier. Consider yourself notified.