Twitter Is DEAD, Facebook Has Won
Did a quick informal poll of my friends on Facebook tonight. I went through some the people I have meet in the flesh (about 70 of them) and only 14 had Twitter accounts.
Most of the ‘normal’ people I know have knowledge of Twitter, but don’t use it or do not intend to.
They want a deep social space with pictures, fun and popular culture. They don’t want to know someone has posted new photos, they want to see them. They go on Facebook as an activity, not use a tool.
So, in my small sphere of if the world, Twitter is dead. Facebook has won.
But Johnny, look at these stats and you don’t know what… BLAH BLAH BLAH…
From what I have learnt, being a social media expert allows for lapses of logic and fact. My space may be a bath tub in a sea of fact, but why look over the sides when my the water inside my walls feels fine.
I also plan to frequently tweet how dead Twitter is, just to stab the wound and convince myself I wasn’t wrong about joining Twitter back in January 2007 and banking my reputation on it.
Twitter broke my heart, so the bitch must pay.
Well said – now I’m going to Retweet it. Where’s the retweet button?
Jesse Stay
19 Dec 09 at 2:51 am
I’d like to hear more about your broken heart.
And how do you feel about Facebook’s highjacking and now slow murder of friendfeed?
Eric Matas
19 Dec 09 at 2:53 am
They don’t do the same things, so I fail to see how either one can “win”.
People I know who use Facebook use it to send pictures and such back and forth to each other, collaborate, play games, etc.
People I know who use Twitter use it to have quick but short conversations, much like text messaging but wider in scope. Most of them use FB Apps like Selective Twitter Status to copy the content to FB, when it’s a status update.
Rarely do I see meaningful conversations happen on Facebook. There’s just too much data in the live feed. Even if you start hiding people, it’s too fast and large. All I really see is people telling each other that they take good pictures, or similar inane things.
Often I see meaningful, but short, conversations on Twitter. However, I also don’t actually know anybody that follows more than, say, 100 people. If you follow everybody, then Twitter loses value as a place to have conversations, because the stream gets to be too fast.
So yes, if you use Twitter like Facebook, and follow everybody, then it loses. But if you use it as a way to only follow people you actually give a damn about, then suddenly it’s a whole different thing entirely.
Otto
19 Dec 09 at 2:55 am
LOL!!! This is definitely one of the most insightful posts I’ve read in a while. No lie.
Rahsheen
19 Dec 09 at 3:00 am
Looking forward to your next installment in this series, entitled “Mac is DEAD, Wintel Has Won.” Or “The New York Times is DEAD, the New York Post Has Won.” (I’m sure you can provide the Australian equivalent.)
But if Oprah Winfrey devotes an episode of her show to Facebook, remind me to hide. (”Hey, look! I can poke Mark!”)
P.S. At some point I plan to explore how certain services that appear to be “dead” from my U.S. perspective are actually thriving in other parts of the world (Friendster, Orkut, and our beloved FriendFeed’s adoption in Turkey).
John E. Bredehoft
19 Dec 09 at 6:02 am