Binary Impact

Facebook’s Response To Twitter [Rant]

Posted by Mavrik | Filed under Tech

I know this is long so I conveniently bolded the important parts of this rant, but I encourage you to read the whole thing. I also want to apologize if I sound anti-Twitter. It’s not that at all, I actually love it and think it’s a sign of things to come. I also have a decent following of 976 people on there (as of Friday). Needless to say, I can attribute a lot of my modest success in blogging to my fans on Twitter (and Gametrailers, thanks to you guys too, but we’re talking about Twitter and Facebook here). You’re what brought me to buy my own site and take blogging more seriously so here’s to you guys. At the same time, I just don’t like that Facebook is selling itself out to be more like Twitter. THIS is why I may sound a little pissed off (which I am). One thing I do hate though is when people bitch when Facebook changes and threaten to leave. We all know you’re not going to leave so stop kidding yourself. I actually see the changes as a good sign because it shows the company is still very adaptable to a constantly change environment.

Facebook made several announcements last week about changes to its home page, profile pages, activity streams, etc. Changes which took place on Friday. This update is yet another response to the rise of Twitter’s popularity. For those who don’t know (and there are still a lot who don’t), Twitter is a website that is similar to Facebook, but deals only with status updates. Twitter has really taken off in the past several months and that’s made Facebook very worried (and caused the many updates we’ve seen in the past few months).

I personally do not think Twitter addresses the same audience as Facebook, and it will never be as big as Facebook. All you have to do is try to explain Twitter to a non-tech friend of yours and you’ll see why. It’s not really as appealing to the general public and I usually get something like, “Well what’s the point if I already have Facebook?” which is very true for the most part. Facebook’s always been about sharing info with friends and Twitter’s been, at least to me, sharing info with a few geeky friends that are also on there and then just conversing with total strangers with similar interests. THAT is what Twitter’s about. I’ve made friends in other countries and even got a website moderator job through Twitter. And for Facebook to abandon its roots to become more like Twitter is just plain stupid.

So why is Facebook doing this? It’s because they don’t want Twitter to become the way large companies and public figures connect to fans, which up until now has sort of been Twitter’s thing. Up until now, Facebook hasn’t really been the best place for fans to go to connect with their favorite celebrities or brands. For that, people go to Twitter. I can understand Facebook’s jealousy over this, but I still stand firm in thinking that it’s really not their part of the market. Sure they want to grow into different sectors to become more profitable, that’s understandable. But with each change they just seem more desperate to take back what Twitter has. I personally prefer Twitter for that part of the market, it just has updates of people you are fans of and that’s it. You don’t really need an info page because, especially if it’s a celeb, you already know info about them. Plus, those that aren’t celebs, like me, can promote their websites for people to get more info. THAT is what Twitter is about, NOT Facebook. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve reconnected with through Facebook. Even as a med student, I have friends that go to my school that I talk to MORE on Facebook than in real life. That’s what Facebook’s about, connecting friends and family.

You FRIEND people on Facebook, you FOLLOW people on Twitter. That pretty much sums it up. You have a stronger relationship usually with the people you friend on Facebook. As for Twitter, you are really just following them. You don’t expect them to follow back or anything. People follow you to see your updates, not really to become friends with you. Perhaps there are a few people who can connect with others through Twitter, but for the most part that’s not the case.

This copy-cat approach may also come back to bite them in the ass because Facebook will always have to keep it’s main structure intact (profiles n such). The structure that made it what it is today. So ultimately as a result of this fact, Facebook will always provide a clunkier, less stream-lined design than Twitter, and people like stream-lined.

Facebook’s introduction of real-time updates and a one-sided follow system mimics Twitter’s functionality. While it may be a little late to this part of the game, its user base of 175 million completely destroys Twitter’s. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, had this to say:

What we’re talking about today, is that there’s a philosophical change in that we want to converge these public figures (which are one way) and friends (two way connections).

Throughout the press conference Facebook emphasized the importance of the activity stream along with the social graph (which is the map of social connections between members). Chris Cox, Facebook’s director of product development, put it this way:

The stream is what is happening. We think it is as core as the graph. The graph is the connections, the stream is what is happening…With the new homepage, that will reflect a much faster flow of information.

The redesigned homepage will allow users to customize their experience and filter their feed more effectively. Updates can now be filtered by groups, specific friends, family, or by applications (which is a nice touch actually). A new publishing box for sharing updates will incorporate the ability to add not just status notes, but also links, photos, and videos. A new widget will highlight items from friends and other connections members interact with the most. In this way, Facebook is trying to strike a balance between its traditional strength as a private communication system and the increasingly public connections being made on the service as well. So far my experience with this has actually been pretty good so kudos to Facebook for that. I like the interface a lot actually, I just don’t like what it means.

Despite its large size, Facebook is showing how well it can respond to new threats. If Facebook cannot buy Twitter, it will try to beat it instead. And they sure as hell aren’t waiting for Twitter to become profitable before they try to go for its throat.

Tags: Facebook, IMO, Internet, Rant, Technology, Twitter