Friendfeed has been tinkering with a new real-time design at beta.friendfeed.com. The real-time version allows all pages to update in real-time, so users can see their friends’ photos, messages, comments, and likes as they occur.
A post from Bret Taylor at the Friendfeed Blog says that they didn’t set out with the goal of a radical redesign, but simply wanted to make it more intuitive, consistent, and elegant. As a result, the new design features:
– 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.
The following short clip will give you an idea of what to expect from the new version.
There’s no word yet on when the new design will take effect on Friendfeed itself. They’re waiting on feedback, and have to iron out some bugs.
So far, users seem to be generally responding positively to the new design. Certainly opinions will vary, but Thomas Hawk has a pretty glowing review of it up here, and avid Friendfeed user Robert Scoble also praises it.
