For those who find FriendFeed's firehose of updates overwhelming, rapidly finding the "hide" option, enabling users to block updates from any service (like Twitter) or updates from "Friends of a Friend" (FOAF), can mean the difference between enjoying and getting benefits from the service, or running away in the opposite direction. As such, integrating FriendFeed's flexible "hide" options is a must for any third party application interfacing with the service.
FriendFeedMachine's Scott Goldie, in his third update of the alternative Web UI for FriendFeed, made adding FriendFeed's "hide options" a priority for the latest release, as well as setting the option to block Twitter replies (via watching for the @ symbol), and a host of other filters, against services, users, and read items.Not every FriendFeed user can handle the "noise" which can stem from following anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds or thousands of users. In fact, co-founder Sanjeev Singh's simple question: "Is FriendFeed too noisy for you?" has generated 60+ responses since he posted the query in February.
By tapping into FriendFeed's API and enabling FriendFeedMachine users to get the same kind of hiding preferences they do on the full service, Goldie's made it even more likely for users to consider migrating. Without these filters, even I wouldn't have stood a chance. For more information on the latest updates from FriendFeedMachine, check the official blog.