Fried Eggs Asks "What's Cracking," giving PR Something to Crow about (and with)

It is nothing short of amazing, the innovation in social media.  This can present a challenge in terms of 
constantly needing to keep up (as I alluded to in my post on Social Fluency) .  On the other hand, there is never a shortage of new tools to add to the quiver.

I thought I'd take the opportunity this week to review two that I believe show great promise: UberVU and Fried Eggs.

Fried Eggs is a micro blogging platform modeled on Twitter. However, it offers a number of improvements that make it a great app in its own right.

For those who know Twitter (and who doesn't these days), Fried Eggs provides a familiar experience, and uses many of the same conventions - you can direct message, retweet, and follow to your heart's content and find myriad ways to put the ubiquitous "@" sign to work.  So it is pretty easy to get started with the app and understand what it can do.

Once I got past the similarities, a number of features jumped out and made me think: why didn't Twitter do it this way?

Fried Eggs tackles the most obvious challenge with the Twitter - the 140 character limit (some would argue that Twitter's simplicity and brevity are the reasons for its success - yet trying to squeeze thoughts into 140 characters is not always easy).

Simply hitting a button labeled "elaborate" opens a window that lets you do just that. The extra characters are hidden in the default view so that the screen is not gummed up with so much text, but you and your followers can easily get to it if needed.  It seems like the perfect feature and platform for launching press releases - the headline can go in the crack (somehow, that just doesn't sound right - should it be creak, or cluck?) and press release body text, in the elaboration.

Fried Eggs also does a better job by showing comments and nested discussion threads, and gives you an easy way to store pictures and video inline - you do not need to invoke a separate application, as you have to do with Twitter.  In another nice touch, there is a search box right there - no need to go somewhere else to search Fried Eggs.

These days it is not enough for a social app to be better - it needs to have a critical mass of users and an ecosystem of other apps around it.  Will Fried Eggs get enough users to truly become a force, and will developers jump on board?

Who knows.  Although I doubt Twitter is too worried, they might have given Fried Eggs an opening with developers, given some of the bad buzz last week in the wake of Chirp and Twitter acquisitions (see the CNET story Et tu Twitter? Here comes Developer Ire).

At any rate I think it is worth checking out.  I am having a lot of fun with it.  And when Twitter is down, it provides another outlet for me to share my thoughts.

Next up: My review of UberVU

Comments

[Mark Geller]

I think you captured well the essence of what FriedEggs is trying to accomplish. It now remains to be seen whether or not its utility will resonate with users. Considering this has been a soft launch, and has only been live for a few weeks, I for one am optimistic based on the existing community's response and feedback.

[Butterose]

At the moment, Fried Eggs is putting the social back into social media. What happens in the future will depend on the ability to compromise between the creators' vision and user's demands.

There needs to be a mission statement besides the "build it and they will come" mission that Twitter seems to have had.

[rgeller]

Hey, that can make a great tag line, I like that ("Putting social back...")!

Thanks for reading and commenting, Fried Eggs is generating lots of enthusiasm and excitement from early users, myself included.

[timethief]

I'm likewise feeling enthusiastic and I love that tagline ... putting the social back into social media.

[Sebastyne]

I love FriedEggs. It's the first web app in years that I fell in love the first 5 minutes of using it. I too see a great potential in it! It truly is social, as discussion is made so easy! It is FUN, as it incorporates what is the best things in both Twitter AND Facebook. It has left out everything you DON'T really need or want in a social environment; in Facebook's case, all the distraction and limitation in terms of people you socialise with, and in Twitter's case, the duct tape over your mouth and a very impersonal way of communication.

[rgeller]

Hey, don't laugh, duct tape over mouth is a best practice here :)

[Alan]

I was initially quite skeptical of Fried Eggs, but having used it for a couple of weeks I am seeing the value in the added features, particularly the nested discussion threads which imho Greatly improve the ability to have real conversations. It remains to be seen if Fried Eggs will reach a critical mass, but it is definitely a new site to watch.

[rgeller]

Well, I'd like to think people will find and use a great app like Fried Eggs and I am glad to do my part in spreading the word.

[Theresa111]

I am totally hooked on the concept of getting ones point across in 140 characters. Having said that, I must admit to the numerous times I have wished to embellish or emphasize my point with photographs or a video clip. FriedEggs.com gives us this and more. Plus, I already know most of the people I am mingling with, so it is really comfortable, like a comfy pair of bedroom slippers. A truly lovely experience.