The most prolific Friendfeeder of them all (to give you an idea of how Robert-Scoble-as-lifestreamer >> Scoble-as-blogger, just look at the number of comments on his Friendfeed vs. Blog … currently a ratio of 10:1 as of this writing) gives the low-down, which includes the lack of people needing an aggregator, how it sucks on mobile systems, and the “noise” issue.  All valid points (there are more … go read them all if you must).

What Friendfeed has to have is some kind of inflection point where its inherent greatness pulled through, was recognized by all, and contributed to some greater good.  The key, of course, is that “inherent greatness” — as Scoble points out, there are a lot of things it kind of does well, but hamstrung by a manpower (and goodness knows what else), its become easy pickings for Facebook to merely mimick the features off of.  That is to say, if Scoble can’t pin down a few singularly great things about Friendfeed, what hope does any of us have when we try and describe it to would-be fans?

Allen Stern describes it as something like a forum.  I would agree … but perhaps what Friendfeed needs to do, or become, is something more evolved than a mere forum.  The thing that blew my mind about Friendfeed wasn’t just how it was an aggregator, but how it enabled real-time conversations that were impossible to track with Twitter.  Perhaps what Friendfeed lacks, then, is the magic sauce that powered Twitter through its would-be-Nobel-nominating efforts in Iran: its ability to be used through text-messaging and SMS-services.  Imagine, for a moment, the kind of impact that secure and private rooms for conversations to be had, in real time, on the fly, off your desktop for would-be revolutionaries in Iran (or, anywhere, for that matter).

There’s still time for an inflection point to happen with Friendfeed, but I’d agree with one of Scoble’s assertions: to make the transition from good to great, they are going to have to think of something clever that Facebook can’t just copy — Facebook has the manpower and resources to continue making Friendfeed a “feature” without it.