Don’t look now folks, but it seems there is a new war brewing up in the social sphere (or has it already begun or might have been in existence before?). If you’ve been regularly checking Techmeme (like me), you’ll notice that both Twitter and Facebook have been receiving quite a number of coverage from various tech sites. It’s either a new Twitter app being developed that’s turning the microblogging service into a social networking site, or Facebook introducing a new feature in response to Twitter’s own features. One thing is clear – a war has begun between these two popular social web tools.
Here are some examples of the articles that reference to a Twitter vs. Facebook framework:
- With Twitter Envy, Facebook Adds (Near) Real-time Web Capabilities
- Facebook responds to Twitter, and the rest
- New Facebook follows Twitter and FriendFeed
- New Facebook = Twitter + Friendfeed. For Non Geeks.
and this is my favorite:
To think that those articles are supposed to talk about the new Facebook feature which turns the Facebook profile pages into something more like the usual Facebook member pages, and the rolling out of the new Facebook home page. But I couldn’t blame tech writers for comparing Twitter and Facebook. After all the two are the most popular social sites today. The monthly site metrics produced by various online research companies would prove this.
And in terms of site traffic and membership base, both sites are continuously growing on a daily basis. The funny thing is, while Twitter is trying to become more like a full-featured social networking site, Facebook on the other hand is trying to focus on its micro services.
Amidst all these new features and changes in their features, one can’t help but wonder whether the user’s wants and preferences were actually considered. Personally, I would rather have Facebook maintain its social networking stature rather down going towards being a microblogging service. As for Twitter, it was best when it was just a simple microblogging site and when there were fewer third-party apps that you can use to enhance its capabilities.
But then, it all boils down to one thing – beating the threats imposed by your competitors even if you belong into different niches.