Apr

13

Second FriendFeed Desktop App: AlertThingy - I’m sticking with the web for now

April 13, 2008 |

imageAfter the disappointment that was Sobees bTittleTattle FriendFeed desktop app, Clive Howard and Jeremy Baines today released their long awaited Alert Thingy for Friendfeed.

AlertThingy is an Adobe Air application with a look somewhat similar to that of Twitter Air applications such as Snitter or Twhirl.

I will write a longer review tonight, but just a few observations for now:

  1. Just like the Sobees app, Alert Thingy mostly reproduces the FF internet experience right now. Unlike Sobees, however, it does a far better job at this. It shows likes, and comments right in the app (without annoying slide-out windows) and just like on the site, items bubble back to the top when they are liked or commented on.
  2. The app is fast - searches come back very quickly.
  3. I hoped that Alert Thingy would have extended some of the FF functions, however. For example, when replying to a Twitter post, why not have a small character counter there so I know what will be seen when the post goes back into Twitter? Actually - can I post back into Twitter from Alert Thingy?
  4. What’s with the set opacity? The text is small (not too small for me, but small) and with a busy background, it becomes unreadable. Control over the font size would be nice.
  5. When commenting, the text box doesn’t expand, which makes it really hard to edit longer comments. Also, you have to click the submit button to post the comment. Hitting ‘enter’ doesn’t do anything. Good thing: you can cancel your posts.
  6. Will TechCrunch ever write some real reviews again? They got the scoop on Alert Thingy, but one has to wonder if Arrington actually used it for more than a minute.

Overall, Alert Thingy does a decent job reproducing the Web experience and it is a heck of a lot better than bTT (though it also doesn’t reproduce many useful features of the web experience).

I was hoping for it to go a bit beyond that, but this is only V 1.0 and there is a lot of room for more development.

I for one am thinking to stick to the web for now, as I don’t see the desktop app having enough advantages over the web version (yet). I’m a big fan of desktop apps and use Twitter exclusively through Snitter, but there has to be an advantage in using a desktop app, and with Alert Thingy, I don’t see enough of that.

p.s. about the web vs. desktop app issue, see this FF discussion.

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