Last week wasn't my favorite time in social media.

Twitter had momentarily lost its gloss, what with DDoS problems, spammers and the usual problems of scaling.  Friendfeed, one of the best social media services, had been sold to Facebook.

It ended up being my quietest week, not just for Twitter, but also for any of my blogging.

On the other hand, like a few Friendfeed users, I spent the time looking at replacements for FF in the eventuality it was one day shuttered.

What I discovered were a batch of new tools which have made for a productive couple of days, even if they don't quite fulfil Friendfeed's esteemed role.

Google Reader is providing a whole heap of news items I can post to Twitter or Friendfeed.  Storytlr gives me a way to aggregate my whole social media lifestream. Streamy gives me some extra news items and a small amount of aggregation.  Finally, the up-and-coming Tumbler brings up a whole new set of options.  It's all got me doing something different from my tweets on Identica. And blogging is back on track with this being my second post in as many days.

So what seemed a bad week became a new opportunity to explore and find something of benefit.

I've noted that a few friends over on Friendfeed have been making similar discoveries.  Google Reader is attracting a few fans amongst the Friendfeeders.

Most of us are still hoping Friendfeed remains in some form or another, because it's still light-years ahead in a lot of ways.  We're prepared if it's not, but it's not like many are suddenly giving up on FF.  It's that good a service that it still provides some great features we're loathe to give up on.

However, only time will tell.

Image courtesy of Ed Wheeler

A lot more is known after Thursday's DDoS attack on Twitter, Facebook and Livejournal.

It is now confirmed that the attack was directed against Georgian blogger Cyxymu.  He himself blames the Kremlin for the attack.  Russian officials were unavailable for comment on this.

Cyxmu himself apologized for what happened, even though he was a victim of all this.

Meantime, Twitter is still experiencing problems.  Attacks still continued into Friday, with the intensity and nature of attacks shifting.

In an LA Times interview, Twitter's service provider explained why Twitter was so vulnerable to the DDoS attacks.

Interestingly, the non-tweeting world thought it hilarious that Twitter users had nothing to do while the DDoS attack occcurred.

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