Before we get to getting on, let’s be clear that I’m in no way condoning cannibalism, but I’m also not condemning it.  Folks gotta do what they were programmed to do, and if that involves physically dining on people, then, let’s just hope it’s not you or me.  Either way, I’m not here to judge the eating habits of my web browsing brethren and, umm…what’s the female version of the word ‘brethren’?

Getting to the point.  I’m no stranger to Facebook connections telling me in real-time (real life?) that I either A) have a unique way of using the service, or B) that I update all the time, so I must C) always be logged in.  At least one or two of those three things is/are technically true.  And we’ll order it as so, to keep things simple:  I am not always logged into Facebook in the sense that folks are implying when they ask the question.  I do update frequently, or often, depending on your use of the English language.  And, I do have a semi-unique way of interacting with Facebook relative to those connections I’ve gained via the service, only in the sense that most of the connections I have are not, how do you say, early adopters?

Introduce friendfeed, the quote-unquote easiest way to share online.  The service that "enables you to discover and discuss the interesting stuff your friends find on the web."  (The major problem I have with that, is that none of my real-time friends, as far as I know, use the service.)  Done so through the simple process of signing up for and creating a friendfeed account and then connecting it to any and all other online services you choose to interact with.  Friendfeed keeps a steady stream of all your online activity, in one place, and feeds it to all your supposed cohorts, if you’re willing to call them that.

But I don’t use friendfeed for the friending feature; although, I do have folks that I follow, and some that have followed me.  No.  I use the service specifically to load up my Facebook, uh…wall?  I guess you would call it, to update my connected world about things I’ve found interesting on the web.  Well, mostly interesting.  I’ve also connected my friendfeed to these various accounts for a variety of reasons: picasaweb, flickkr, twitter, brightkite, my blog’s RSS, and, most importantly (also the reason I appear to be so active on Farcebook), my googleReader shares.

There you have it.  Once a Facebook eats a friendfeed, a Facebook user never really has to log in again.  The friendfeed maintains a constant connection while continually monitoring a user’s activity around the InterWeb and makes updates accordingly.  The one caveat being that you’ll have to access your FB account to find new connections.  If those connections find you, they can be confirmed via a mobile application on a cellphone.  (Very handy.)

The flip-side being, of course, that most users of Facebook require constant attention and if you don’t routinely post publicly to address their narcissism, then they will more than likely refrain from attending to your feed.  Hardly a concern, if you know what I mean.

Enjoy!

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FriendFeed Your Facebook, Or Eat People was first posted to justinll.com on May 20, 2009.