Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Facebook/Twitter Faceoff v2.0
So the epic Facebook/Twitter battle continues. This week it comes in the form of
1. Facebook acquiring Friend Feed,
2. Announcing a new version of Facebook called Facebook Lite and then
3. This report released about Facebook growing twice as fast as Twitter over the course of July, 2009.
So much has happened in such a short amount of time, its hard to say what may have caused this, but the best guess (as cited over on TechCrunch) is that Facebook is ripping off Twitter yet again by adding the “EVERYONE” button. Now, just like Twitter, you can publicly broadcast what you had for lunch to all the people who honestly don’t care, but you desperately wish would! The addition of Facebook Lite also makes Facebook the new Twitter, as its essentially just a feed based service. Now, I understand their desire to be the master of the social universe, but there’s no reason each can’t exist in its own right, especially since Facebook is on ‘in only’ platform, with no real way to feed content OUT of Facebook, making the concept of open social integration into sites almost non-existent without using their own proprietary “Facebook Connect” login… which again, kinda only points content back into Facebook.
So, while Facebook continues to try and emulate its competition in order to weed them out, they continue to lose their authenticity and original value in the social realm. Again, I call on your Facebook, to focus on what you’re best at and stop trying to buy up all your competitors in an effort to be the only solution out there. Play nice. Integrate with the other networks. Make it all one big happy party where each person brings something they’re really good at and we get a network of amazing skill sets to play within.
That sounds like an awesome party to me!
Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/12/facebook-grew-twice-as-fast-as-twitter-in-july/
