More than a year ago, we first talked about FriendBinder, which was one of many services offering lifestreaming capabilities, aggregating your information from different social networks, and letting you follow friends from each network in one place. It didn't have the polish of other sites, like FriendFeed, the high visibility of networks like Facebook, or the dollars behind it like Plaxo and MyBlogLog. But what it did offer was the ability to "tier" friends in terms of how interested you were in their updates, and to act as a console. But it wasn't open to everybody, until earlier this week, when developer Richard Cunningham finally opened the doors.
FriendBinder Pulls Updates from Around the Web (Interest Level: 5)
In the wake of FriendFeed's buyout from Facebook, and the siren's call that is Twitter, social networking users are no doubt reticent to invest time into "yet another network" or "yet another aggregator", especially as many of the aggregation functions that were once enough to launch a separate site are now being incorporated by the giants (see: Facebook). But FriendBinder has some interesting features worth taking a look at.
Comments and Likes from Facebook Are Streamed to FriendBinder
Since its initial release, FriendBinder has benefited from enhancements by some of the larger sites. By pulling in data from Facebook friends in FriendBinder, I can see comments and likes from within the site, and can even make comments to Facebook from within FriendBinder. In addition, Twitter replies and direct messages are displayed on the left side, in their own stream, letting me respond from within FriendBinder.
I Can Update My Twitter and Facebook Status from FriendBinder
Also, in parallel with Facebook and SocialToo both announcing ways for you to update your Facebook and Twitter followers simultaneously, this is something FriendBinder does as well.
FriendBinder's goal is not to be a social network. It doesn't have any native content owned by the service, nor does it have likes and comments or distinct connections on the service that make others social. But it does find all your friends' updates in one place, without requiring them to join. You can import your profiles from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Flickr and Last.FM.
To check out FriendBinder, go to http://www.friendbinder.com.