The Social Media world is abuzz today regarding the Facebook acquisition of FriendFeed. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering the two companies already had an overlapping relationship. For some time, Facebook users have been able to access a FriendFeed application from their Facebook profiles and it is no secret that Facebook was “inspired” by many Friendfeed features including the ability to “like” someone’s status.

 What does this mean for Facebook and FriendFeed users? Well, for the time being it doesn’t mean anything. Both companies are still working out the long-term details. According to Co-Founder Bret Taylor, FriendFeed will continue to operate normally and the API will remain the same. A more interesting question might be, what does this mean for Twitter? Facebook has been contemplating the best way to compete against this real-time news update titan, and it seems they have found it in FriendFeed. Incorporating FriendFeed’s excellent real-time updates into Facebook means hefty competition for Twitter. Since becoming popular, Twitter has had only one competitive edge over Facebook: their real-time news update capabilities. With the addition of FriendFeed to Facebook, Twitter may have lost their one up.

This merger is very much a meeting of like-minds. Facebook and FriendFeed have very similar ideas about social media and both companies are going to benefit from this integration. Facebook will be gaining real-time news update technology, not to mention the kind-of-a-big-deal ex-Googlers known as the Co-Founders of FriendFeed, some of whom are responsible for Gmail and Google Maps. FriendFeed will be gaining 250 million users worldwide- and that is nothing to shrug at. 

For now, Facebook and FriendFeed users will have to wait to see what changes this means for them. Considering how much overlap there is between the two social media sites, it might be a while before they decide on exactly how to integrate for the long-term; nevertheless, Twitter is most definitely on high alert.

 Official Facebook Press Release