When a relied upon product or service ceases to be a viable long term solution, echoing waves of opportunity flow through the market ecosystem. We are called to action, to do our best to collectively come up with a solution. Alternatively we work in parallel to invent many solutions without the need of mass approval. No single answer need assuade the needs of all users. Fragmentation of user groups by preferences is natural causing the flock of users to disperse into smaller groups.
With the passing of ownership of friendfeed to Facebook, it's users are left scrambling trying to build something they can rely upon. There are multiple groups forming that hope to provide a solution.
One group is attempting to nominate and vote for a leader to champion a software and service clone of the friendfeed architecture. While a noble effort, leveraging democracy to pin point a leader, is like trying to elect service providers. There is something missing from this philosophy. Voting for a responsible representative isn't the same as discovering an excellent product built by a business building entrepreneur. So there's a disconnect. But I have hopes that they bridge the gap and discover a project lead that is both capable of creating an (open source?) solution and organizing a community. Here's a link to some discussion of the nominees.
Another group is forming with the idea of building sustainable user-oriented businesses. While they may share some goals with the first group, Argo User Ventures is really a new community that is interested in leveraging existing technologies to help support open social media amongst other potential user service areas. My confidence with the efficacy of this group is dependant on our ability to narrow down the scope to a defined problem space. And it needs to be one where our combined expertise provides unique value. The current group is open but may be closed for refinement of organizational direction. After all, who's looking for a boss or venture that doesn't provide value for our time contribution? I know Jason Cronkhite from building43, another community that needs more focused actionable directions.
Which group will get more of my energy and the contribution of community members?