Last month, we reported the arrival of Facebook’s version of a lifestream when they began offering you a way to import content from various online services into your Facebook Mini-Feed. At the time, the only services available were Flickr, Picasa, Yelp, and del.icio.us. (Digg was added later on). Today, a post on the Facebook blog announces that you can now import from several other services, including YouTube, StumbleUpon, Hulu, Pandora, Last.fm, and Google Reader.
At the time of last month’s Facebook’s announcement, we dismissed Facebook’s attempt at lifestreaming, saying there was “nothing to see here.” Those same reasons still hold true today…to some extent. In comparison to current web darling FriendFeed, the Facebook Mini-Feed can’t compare – there is no “liking” or commenting available, the number of services still pales in comparison to FriendFeed’s (although that may change in time), but most importantly, the feed stays locked in Facebook with no RSS export option. You have to be logged into Facebook.com to view both the Mini-Feed or the News Feed.
However, with the number of services supported today – eleven plus a new option to enter in your blog URL, too – Facebook is clearly laying the groundwork to become the everyman’s version of FriendFeed. And, for all we know, those features it lacks, like commenting and liking, might be just around the corner.
The Facebook post reminds us to “keep an eye on your News Feed, it will only become more interesting as Facebook opens up to more sites,” so something tells us they aren’t done yet.
