Before the end of 2007, after making FriendFeed an integral part of my daily Web experience, I publicly posted a number of requested updates that would help make the social Web activity aggregation service even more of a must-visit site than it already was for me. While I've obviously been one of the more vocal and visible proponents of FriendFeed, especially following its opening to the public, the site and its six employees have now catapulted themselves well beyond my little blog, making headlines daily on TechMeme, and getting their unfair share of fawning reviews, questions from the not yet converted, and as I did a few months ago, the occasional list of user's hopes and dreams.But even as their user base has grown tremendously, FriendFeed has remained focused, posting frequent enhancements, including one long-awaited item today, which allows for the blocking of a service altogether from the site. (See: FriendFeed: Paul Buchheit: Super-Hide is now available!)
If I were to block Tumblr, I could do it like this...
Now, as I asked back in December, you can finally block Twitter, and never have to see it again, if you don't want to. Now, I can stop seeing Disqus comments any of my friends make, or even their friends, should a discussion break out. Now, if I want, I can stop seeing Last.fm song updates, or Seesmic videos. After all, as FriendFeed has made it incredibly easy to harness all the updates from all your friends from around the Web in one place, there is the potential you could get a lot of noise mixed in that just gets in the way.
As with other updates FriendFeed has made over time, the option is quite flexible. You can hide one item. You can mute comments on a busy conversation. You can stop seeing friends of specific friends, or block specific services from individuals, or even use the nuclear option, as I've been doing, to hide entire services. FriendFeed simply enables the platform for you to view what you want to see, from those you want to share items with.
If you haven't yet caught the FriendFeed bug, you really should. You can see my FriendFeed here, or even better, you can see my "Comments and Likes" stream, showing interaction. Just don't hide everything I do. It'd hurt my feelings.