Comments on: The inevitable ticking time bomb awaiting Friendfeed.

By: andymurd

andymurd — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:00:33 +0000

When rooms were first announced there was quite a run of people registering spammy sounding room names (picked some up myself). Most such rooms are completely empty and were just taken to deny spammers a nice URL on a trusted site.

The thing that will save FriendFeed is its subscription model – you actively subscribe to people and very few users are going to subscribe to spammers. It’s also really easy to block people so even spammers that are friends of friends disappear quickly. For FriendFeed’s users, spam should not be much of a problem.

For the developers & admins, it will be a problem if automated submissions happen as the article predicts and swamp the servers.

By: andymurd

andymurd — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:00:33 +0000

The thing that will save FriendFeed is its subscription model – you actively subscribe to people and very few users are going to subscribe to spammers. It's also really easy to block people so even spammers that are friends of friends disappear quickly. For FriendFeed's users, spam should not be much of a problem.

For the developers & admins, it will be a problem if automated submissions happen as the article predicts and swamp the servers.

By: n8k99

n8k99 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:41:26 +0000

the viagra room already directs to a viagra user which seems to be in place to prevent anyone from creating this very thing.

By: Dewald Pretorius

Dewald Pretorius — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:19:46 +0000

Michael, first off, I don't understand why people criticize you for writing this post. You've raised a valid concern.

I've noticed that when someone invites you to a room, not only do you receive an email from FriendFeed, the invite is also stuck on the right-hand side of your FriendFeed page.

That's one feature that I won't lose sleep over if they removed it.

I trust that FriendFeed folks are working on anti-spam measures, because FriendFeed has the potential to be a spammer's wet-dream.

Not only can spammers very easily push their content in the faces of FriendFeed members, they can also abuse the service for getting additional "followed" backlinks to their sites and pages.

By: warner444

warner444 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:01:24 +0000

funny some commenters think like this is no big deal or it won’t happen, maybe they are spammers. flag this is ok but it would need a high enough number so it does not have to be managed by some big staff AND cannot be abused by over zealous people.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:05:33 +0000

Awesome way to get people clicking on the link. Lame article, though. Shows clearly that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

By: callingbull

callingbull — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:45:26 +0000

How is this problem different from blog spam or any other type of spam on public systems? You write this as it is a unique phenomenon.

FAIL.

By: n8k99

n8k99 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:41:26 +0000

the viagra room already directs to a viagra user which seems to be in place to prevent anyone from creating this very thing.

By: Dewald Pretorius

Dewald Pretorius — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:19:46 +0000

By: warner444

warner444 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:01:24 +0000

funny some commenters think like this is no big deal or it won't happen, maybe they are spammers. flag this is ok but it would need a high enough number so it does not have to be managed by some big staff AND cannot be abused by over zealous people.