Friendfeed had a little revamp this week and it has generated quite a lot of buzz around the net. mostly from the early adopters that form the active crowd using it. when friendfeed launched it was not really anything exciting to me because it was no more than a aggregator with interaction. the updates that have gone through from then to now summed up with this recent mini-revamping finally shape Friendfeed into something worthwhile of attention. i am not entirely convinced it could go mainstream in the short term. but i do see it as good fit for going mainstream in the long term. maybe by late 2009 or early 2010. right now it is more than likely to remain something that only a 10% may be able to use effectively. if anyone doubt such argument. i then must remind everyone that Twitter. the main utility friendfeed feeds from and that is at least three times more popular is not  close to break into the mainstream yet

Even then. the new changes look to be just the push i needed to make me use Friendfeed and i will be paying more attention to it more closely.

Along with a new look at tweaks. the latest friendfeed update al brought Friendfeed Widgets with it:

FriendFeed Badge

The Friendfeed badge is basically a Friendfeed User ID Card. but depending how you use it. you can also make it a unbranded ID card or Social Card if you want to. that is because you have the options to customize your widget and decide how you want it to look by removing elements from it and choosing the size you want it too. as a example i made mine more minimalistic.

It is a JavaScript widget badge so that means is best suited for blogs and it also carries a option for further customization via CSS.

One final interesting note is that Friendfeed is giving out special support to Blogger. i would not be surprised at all if Friendfeed happened to offer Google Connect support later too. the ties of the FriendFeed team with Google continue to be quite strong. something to pay special attention too in my opinion.

FriendFeed Badge

Share on FriendFeed Link Button and Bookmarklet

A Friendfeed share link button or bookmarklet for Blogs that come in HTML or in JavaScript flavor. the first one is a quick sharing loader and the second one is a bookmarklet so it allows you to edit before sharing.

The Share Link Button comes with direct support for Blogger and WordPress blogs only.this don`t means it cannot work elsewhere. just that you cannot blame them if it don`t works properly.

“Share on FriendFeed” Link

FriendFeed Feed Widget

The main offering from FriendFeed is its Feed Widget. it carries around a river of notes from your your friendfeed account and it can show up as many as 10 at a time. you can also filter the services in the case you want it to just display updates from one service only.it can also load the notes from the FriendFeed Room you own or are subscribed to. this makes it a useful widget for the services supported by FriendFeed or for following the notes in your favorite FriendFeed room. just like with the Badge. you can also remove whatever you don`t want to show up in the widget design and if you want to make your own customization to it. you can choose to do so by using the advanced CSS option for it. this is the widget that was previously offered unsupported before and the changes it presents is that it now can offer you size customization, it sports the new friendfeed look and it comes with the promo footer so people can easily view your friendfeed page or subscribe to you in a click if the are logged into the service. it is a good widget but the selection to be only able to check up to 10 items makes it limited if you happen to be very active. for a up to 30 items version just like in your FriendFeed page you will have to use the Embeddable FriendFeed Lifestream widget instead.

Given this is Friendfeed main offering i would have liked a Flash version that would allow you to reply directly to the items. or if they offered a special iframe widget version of friendfeed that could make friendfeed a portable experience.

Feed Widget

FriendFeed Chiclet Button

A chiclet, not the one i was expecting but one nonetheless. this is only a HTML link button so you can promote yourself wherever you want. i would have liked a Followers Friendfeed Chiclet option too. maybe later or maybe sooner from a third party. we will see.

Chiclet Widget

Friendfeed Status Widget Badge

The Friendfeed Status Badge is no more than a restricted version of the Friendfedd Feed Widget. it only loads updates from your Friendfeed Account and it only show one of them at a time. recommended only for the more casual users or to use it for a specific Friendfeed Supported service.

Status Widget

There you have it. these are the official widgets from Friendfeed and lets hope they are not the last and that they add more robust versions or more of them as they update the service.

FriendFeed Widgets