One Place for Your Many Online Lives (BusinessWeek)

Some Google alumni doing potentially disruptive (e.g., to social networking site business models) stuff

People are socializing on networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (NWS) and sharing pictures and videos on Web sites including Flickr (YHOO) and YouTube (GOOG). But all these activities have been walled off from one another, like separate digital worlds. To keep track of friends and colleagues, you have to log in and out of different services constantly.

IT'S WHO YOU KNOW

FriendFeed is one of the first major efforts to break down these walls. With the startup's service, subscribers can pull together on one Web page everything their friends and colleagues are doing on more than 30 Web sites. The goal is to organize the Web's information in valuable ways, a bit like Google does. But instead of using search, FriendFeed uses people you know to uncover valuable information. To find movie recommendations or news items or provocative ideas, you can tap into the wisdom of friends. "Our thesis was that the best filter for information is people you know," says Buchheit.

One Place for Your Many Online Lives