FriendFeed is not much different than Twitter.  Short posts, following people and gathering followers, etc., etc.  So why the huge news across the web about this acquisition.  In short, Facebook happens to be the fastest growing social site ever.

The idea of social networking and microblogging is nothing new.  Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed and many others have been around for a few years now.  But when a social powerhouse like Facebook takes you over amazing things can happen.

Will Facebook Pull FriendFeed Out of the Mire?

The question now is what will happen to FriendFeed?  Will it start providing real competition for Twitter?  Will Facebook shut it down?

As of now there are no reported plans to shut down FriendFeed.  According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch.com in his interview with FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor and Facebook VP Products Chris Cox, “Taylor and Cox say that the Friendfeed product will live on independently, and eventually Friendfeed will be merged into Facebook.”

Some other structural changes will occur within the 12 employee start-up like who everybody reports to,etc.  Aside from that not much will change…or will it?

I decided to do some research into what has happened with FriendFeed since the acquisition and found some interesting information.  According to Alexa, FriendFeed has experienced over 63% growth in traffic over the last 3 months, much of it occurring this month.

Whether Facebook will help put FriendFeed at the top of the microblogging world or not is still to be determined.  But having backing like Facebook can’t hurt.  We’ll all just have to add it to our list of social networking outlets and see how it goes.