Facebook and FriendFeed have both released press releases to announce that Facebook has bought FriendFeed. At the minute there has been no mention of cost or what this means for the future of FriendFeed's service but it will likely mean that we see more features from FriendFeed absorbed into the timeline view of Facebook. On their website they have stated:
FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team. As usual, we will communicate openly about our plans as they develop — keep an eye on the FriendFeed News group for updates.
I guess this purchase is most likely Facebook's attempt at fighting back at Twitter and to show that it is still relevant and can provide what people want. The biggest problem with Facebook however is the way the applications work and how many requests you constantly get for stupid little applications that serve no purpose other than to waste a few minutes and to irritate you.
The problem most existing FriendFeed user's share is what will happen to this service once Facebook has finished copying the features it wants? If it is eventually disbanded altogether this will leave a large number of unhappy people who like using it for feeds from Twitter, etc. but have no interest in Facebook.
Interestingly it does seem to have sparked a renewed interest from some people as within hours of the press release, after having no new requests on FriendFeed for ages, I got two new subscription notifications. I know it's not exactly a niche service, there are a lot of users using FriendFeed however I think it will remind some users who have forgotten about it that it's there which means it's probably not a bad thing in terms of marketing for either company, but whether it becomes a PR disaster for Facebook a few months down the line remains to be seen.
My assumption is this is a play for facebook to aggregate more in the newsfeed, and a slight to twitter in light of their rejected fb buyout a few months ago. Apps are useless to developers now that they've been hidden behind a tab and I think many sites have moved onto fbConnect as a consequence. While I found FriendFeed to be guilty of over-aggregation, I feel like pulling that mess into facebook might actually start to balance that out.
I think avid users of friendfeed are liable to be disappointed in the final outcome of this merger.
Aside: I'd love for my flickr photos to post to fb without a stupid app. Hopefully this will solve for that ;)