Lately, Facebook has seemed to be in a transition phase (half stuck between becoming a Twitter competitor and sticking to their roots). While it is hard to say what sort of functionality they are aiming for at Facebook., they are certainly giving us a look at the future.

FriendFeed brings a lot of brain power into the mix. Now that Facebook has acquired the know-how, there are a lot of things they can be doing to improve my experience.

Include a real-time search of status messages.

Facebook needs to become more open. I want to search status messages and see what people are talking about up to the minute. This is a no-brainer.

Be my one-stop internet identity.

This means Facebook has to adopt the aggregation qualities of FriendFeed. I want to be able to connect my Facebook with my FriendFeed, my blog, and my Brightkite. I don’t necessarily want to publish posts from all of those networks, but I want Facebook to recognize all of those networks as me. If someone connects with me on one network, I would like for them to be able to visit my Facebook profile and get a more complete sense of the person I am.

I want to easily link/mention my friend’s profiles in my posts.

There is no easy way to reference a friend in a status update on Facebook. On Twitter this is as easy at including someone’s handle. I would like to be able to type a friend’s name and have it appear as a link to his profile in my status update. Even better, if Facebook would allow us to aggregate our profiles from other networks we could easily use a Twitter handle or another username to mention each other in posts. Those links could all head to our Facebook profile pages, making them much more useful and relevant.

Make Facebook less messy.

Here is where the FriendFeed team can really make improvements. In Facebook, there are so many different places to interact with other users that it gets confusing. I think it reduces the amount of quality interaction.

Let’s say you see Dave’s status and you want to respond. You can:

1. Post a comment on his status message, but risk the annoyance of getting notifications every time a user you don’t know also comments on that status update.
2. Head to Dave’s profile so you can comment on his wall.
3. Start a chat with Dave to continue the discussion
4. Send Dave a mail message

Let say you choose to post on Dave’s wall and now he sees your wall post. He can:

1. Comment you back on the post you put on his wall
2. Head to your profile and post his response on your wall
3. Start a chat with you
4. Send you a mail message

Now lets say Dave is a total noob (which is the case for a lot of Facebook users). He accidentally posts his response in another status update. All of a sudden this conversation has gone from a status update, to one person’s wall, to the next person’s wall, back to a status update. Needless to say, the entire process has a lot of room to be simplified.

There are things I like about both sites, and by taking the strengths of both FF and FB, perhaps they can mash together a new social media super-power.

What do I like about Facebook?

Facebook is where I can find most of the people I know personally. It is less scary and more acceptable to a wide range of users because you generally connect with more people that you know in real-life. This is partially why they have been acquiring so many new users. The problem is: Facebook has not entirely kept up with the way people communicate and connect, leaving them with one foot in the past, one foot in the future, and an interface that is equally as stuck in-between.

What do I like about FriendFeed?

All of my internet identities are pulled into one convenient location that is very intuitive and easy to use. The problem is: The average user doesn’t know as many people on FriendFeed and is less inclined to spend time there, even though the interface is way better.