(CNN) -- Three days after the world watched a giant balloon fly through the air and a tearful family express fears that their 6-year-old boy could be inside, authorities announced what millions already suspected: The whole thing was staged.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden tells reporters Sunday the "balloon boy" incident was a hoax.

It was carried out by a couple who met "in acting school in Hollywood" and "put on a very good show for us," Sheriff Jim Alderden of Larimer County said Sunday. Authorities know there was "a conspiracy" between Richard and Mayumi Heene, he said.

"It has been determined that this is a hoax," the sheriff said, adding police "believe we have evidence at this point that it was a publicity stunt" by the family in hopes of "better marketing themselves for a reality show at some point in the future."

The dramatic announcement included an admission by Alderden that authorities misled the media on Friday when they said they still believed it was not a hoax.

In fact, after a comment on CNN Thursday night by Falcon, the 6-year-old boy, "it became very clear to us at that point that they were lying," Alderden said. But in order to get to the truth, "it was very important that they maintain their trust with us." So investigators misled the media while they carried out their "game plan" of gathering the truth. Watch Alderden tell how police recognized "hoax" »

The words that triggered concern: "You guys said we did this for the show." That's what Falcon told his parents when they asked him, on live television, why he had not come out from hiding when they were calling for him.

The "nonverbal responses" from the children at that moment made it clear, Alderden said. The children looked at their parents at that moment, seeming unsure how to react. Watch body language expert analyze Heene interview »

The Heenes denied any hoax and said Falcon's remark was a reference to the media that had assembled in front of the family's home.

The Heenes had no immediate response to Sunday's announcement.

Charges have not been filed, but authorities expect to recommend felony charges including conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and attempting to influence a public servant, Alderden said. They also plan to recommend a charge of filing a false police report, which is a misdemeanor.

He also said it is "unlikely" that someone convicted of these charges would face jail time. "We have to allocate our space to" those who commit more serious crimes or have a record of felonies, he said.

One key question remains unanswered, Alderden said: Where was Falcon as police searched for him? On Friday, Alderden said it had been determined that the boy was hiding in an attic in the garage and had fallen asleep. Now, authorities are unsure. Alderden said the boy may not even have been in the home. Explainer: How 'balloon boy' drama began »

"The biggest error we made is when we searched the house, very clearly we didn't search the house as thoroughly as we should," he said. Authorities had assumed a 6-year-old boy could not have reached that attic, he said, so they were willing to believe the story the Heenes told the next day

The Heene Family is in deep water as they should be. Richard Heene, the father who orchestrated the hoax is having felony charged brought against him. He is a ego-maniac who didn't have anyone else's interest besides his own. He's really hurt his little son. His son will forever be haunted by the name balloon boy.

Can you imagine being on a first date, that's if he can ever get a first date, and having to go into this whole hoax saga over and over again. My God. And if he ever gets married, would his wife really want such a crazed psychotic-ego-driven-maniac as a father-in-law? I don't think she would.

My God. Let the full weight of the law fall on Richard Heene's head. Amen!

Where do I spend my attention? That's all I have. Unlike many others in the tech community I don't have a lot of money to invest in companies. I also don't have coding skills, so can't build stuff, so the only way I can build stuff is to spend my time judiciously and focus attention through my video camera's lens and my blogging. So, here we go about FriendFeed and why I've cut back on using it and what might be in its future:

Tonight TechCrunch's MG Siegler pointed out FriendFeed is dead. I can't disagree. I've been spending a lot less time there. I've noticed that even Louis Gray's feed has less engagement than it used to have.

There are a few reasons for that.

First, the FriendFeed team and Facebook has made a significant PR mistake. They have NOT talked about any future for FriendFeed. That has signaled to most of us that FriendFeed is the Facebook equivilent of DodgeBall or Jaiku. Dead, not because the service won't stay up, but dead because no one is working on it anymore.

Second, in this Twitter age you can't hide things from us anymore. See in the 1990s you could PR your way out of this problem by saying something is important. Today? We know too many people deep inside the company and they Twitter what they are working on and where they are moving. Last week Gary Burd said he's leaving FriendFeed/Facebook. That speaks volumes. I'm also hearing that the team has been split up and is working 100% on Facebook issues. I've said that publicly and no one from Facebook or FriendFeed has called me to tell me I'm wrong. 

Third, the fact that Facebook didn't lock up the whole team for at least a year or two is totally amazing to me. Gary leaving says volumes. WTF? How much stock did he have? If I had bought FriendFeed I would have made sure that everyone on the team, particularly a star like Gary (he started the Google Talk team) would have TONS of reasons to stay. Yes, he probably would have left eventually anyway (I expect everyone involved to leave over the next six years as their stock vests) but the fact that Gary only stayed a couple of months is just not good.

Fourth, Twitter is in the process of adding all the features that FriendFeed has and more. The first one, lists, has already been turned on for me and is coming "within days" for everyone else. That was a major reason I used FriendFeed (so I could split up my Twitter friends into different lists). Twitter's version is even better than FriendFeed's.

Fifth, the world has spoken. Everywhere I go people tell me Twitter is where they are going to be and that they are totally ignoring FriendFeed.

Sixth, FriendFeed has lost most of its developer momentum. The one exception is Apture, which just last week released a FriendFeed feature. I appreciate that a lot, but they are one of the only exceptions. Most of the developers I talk with tell me they've cancelled any FriendFeed projects they are working on.

OK, so what future does FriendFeed have?

First of all, the engine is open source. So we might see some other service take it on and implement its features. I doubt it, though, because no investor will go for it and Twitter has already implemented its best features in the lab (except for Real-Time Search, and I hear that Twitter is working feverishly on that).

Second of all, when I look at the home feed I don't see geeks, but I do see SOME activity. Mostly from people who aren't involved in tech at all. It has become a cult favorite.

Third. It does have SOME unique uses that I don't see Twitter or Facebook matching for some time. It's a great place to have a chat room. Yes, Google Wave will potentially take that away, but they stuck it in such a complex UI that many many people have told me they will never use it. Jason Pollack, film director, for instance, uses it once in a while to have live conversations that are quite active and cool.

Fourth, it still has the best real-time search out there. Until someone matches that I will go back there to find old Tweets and old posts.

Fifth, its servers are cheap to operate (the infrastructure FriendFeed was built on was designed very efficiently) and if growth remains flat the costs will stay cheap, so Facebook has no financial reason they need to shut down the servers. 

So, why did I name this blog "the Second Life of FriendFeed?" Because bloggers like me hyped up Second Life and then when businesses figured out that Second Life didn't work for them (you could only get about 100 people onto an island) we left in droves and stopped writing about it. The thing is a new audience showed up for Second Life and today it's a thriving and profitable business.

Will FriendFeed turn out to be like Second Life? I think it could. There will always be some people who want to be on some service other than the popular ones. There ARE people out there who hate Twitter and Facebook and want to hang out on a tool that more fits their personality. FriendFeed DOES have a future there. 

But it isn't a future for me, and that's just OK. Second Life doesn't care that I'm not on it anymore either. 

I am interested to know if you think there's a Second Life for FriendFeed, though.

Robert Scoble wrote a great post on Friendfeed and how it's not dead but gone the way of Second-life. Still somewhat alive with a cult following but not growing as it once did.

I agree with what Scoble is saying, and I just wish Twitter would stop being so flighty and get their stability issues in check.