Facebook is about to eat Twitter for lunch. I’m slowly recognizing that more and more of my activity is migrating from Twitter to Facebook. I’ve also been wondering if Apples upcoming IOS 5 integration with Twitter is a strategic mistake on Apple’s part? What will it take for Facebook to finish Twitter off? Here’s my lists of recommendations of what to do and not do.
Give me a separate “subscribed” news feed – I want to be able to toggle back and forth between people I am subscribed to and people I am friends with in my newsfeed. An integrated view is nice, but sometimes I just want to see my friends and vice versa.
Public Subscribe Button – I already have a button for follow me on Twitter and a button to friend me on Facebook. What we need now is a Subscribe to my public Facebook feed button. It should allow folks to easily subscribe vid Facebook.
Default responses to site discussions via Facebook to “public” – Imagine the community engagement when people bring their subscribers to the discussion via promotion through their public feed.
Stop Auto-generating friend lists – I like the ability to generate custom lists to categorize my friends, but honestly I really only feel the need right now to have two lists. Friends and subscribers. That said, I’m overwhelmed at all the lists Facebook has auto-generated for me. I want to shut that feature off. I don’t need lists for where I live, where I went to school, where I’ve worked. It is almost like getting flogged for having too diverse a social graph.
Search baby, search – Real-time and historic search of my newsfeed and the overall public stream equals absolute killer feature. Facebook will have Twitter (which has never managed search well) and Google trembling.
Integrate subscribe concept into Pages – I’d like a more discreet ability to add page content to my newsfeed. Currently, you can “like” a page and it will show up in your stream, but it also shows up in your profile. It would be nice to have an ability so subscribe to a page without public disclosure or (implied) endorsement of the page.
Originally posted at www.devost.net
I think you are spot on!
I agree with Lisa! I was just thinking what you wrote this morning!
Thanks for pulling this together. Let’s see what else the launch today!
All great ideas! Watch your back from now on, for shadowy figures dressed as blue birds!
Oh, you mean like you can do using Google+ with a single Chrome extension?? 😉
But, let’s be honest: Facebook is now officially approaching the brink of too much. Again, a massive amount of redesign, new features, etc show up and the world goes into a tizzy over it. Seems clear that Facebook is feeling the fire and instead of “innovating” is attempting to move forward for the sake of moving forward. I forsee that at this pace, Facebook will become so complicated and over done it will begin turning people off. It will no longer be simple enough your mom could do it and membership will wane.
Features are nice, but not being able to seperate power user features from every day users is going to make or break social media platforms going forward and honestly, it’s not clear that Facebook gets that. Twitter, on the other hand, does get that. The platform is simple, but multiple API built platforms have been created that allow you to use the twitter information in a way any power user can image. (The power of open..) Where Facebook holds onto it’s primary API like some kind of ring en route to Mordor…
Bob,
I’ve learned by this point that I am not a typical user, but for me Twitter and Facebook serve two very different purposes and functions. For me Twitter is the Internet’s version of the CB. There’s a number of available channels, I can jump online with any handle and spout whatever nonsense I want only being constrained by community ethos if I choose to follow (e.g. Ch. 9 is emergency). Facebook is ham radio. I need a license to operate it. It serves a much smaller community of other known ham radio operators. People consistently broadcast on the same channel. I would not use FB in the way I use Twitter. I’d sooner switch from Twitter to Google+.
JP
http://www.about.me/jpmorgenthal
@JP : LOL! I love that! (W1CGP here..so yeah..I got you 5X5 on that one…) And that kind of is what I was getting at. Facebook is becoming a tad more complicated, almost too much so and there is no way to dial it back really. Though, the CB comparison on Twitter might have been a tad harsh. You can do the same thing and “hide” on facebook too, though the route to being a loud mouth is considerably shorter on twitter.
To your Google+ point, check this out StartG+ I use it in order to manage my Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and now LinkedIn all from my Google+ mainpage. Comes back to my point on public API and tools being created for power users..
Friends, just a short note before I run into a meeting, this piece was written by my friend and comrade Matt Devost and the way RSS picks it up here dropped that key point.
More later.
Bob
Interesting read but not sure if I agree. I would compare Twitter to text message on a mobile phone and Facebook to email on a mobile phone. Somewhat similar in form and function but I do not see one replacing the other anytime soon.
Twitter and Facebook are different beasts with different purposes and usage patterns. I don’t think anything Zuckerberg announced yesterday changes that. It’s also worth noting that I could follow a lot more of the discussion about F8 though the #f8 hashtag on Twitter than I could on Facebook … it also had the advantage of feeding me thoughts and opinions from people I don’t know or follow instead of serving up comments from my pool of Facebook friends.
Facebook will always be your high school yearbook, while Twitter is the modern information ticker tape.
These new Facebook features might very well overwhelm the user base. Don’t forget it’s a global experience, not everyone has American sensibilities and priorities when it comes to social media.
Twitter drives the “highest” hit margins to websites of “any” tool in the marketplace at this time. It seems no one is aware of this reality. The fact is – the view of Twitter should not be a “social” share of what “we” are doing – rather the place to share the mapping of what we are doing.
Twitter is a driver to “other” websites and information banks and if you review analytics – you’ll see Tweets garner more hard hits overall. This has been true for years and Google as well as FaceBook do not do this. While folks may visit the Google page of choice or FaceBook of choice those websites respectively do not drive traffic elsewhere. Twitter; however, drives traffic “wherever” your information share leads. And, re-tweets build your network through viaducts – where if links are shared – more hard hits occur to those sites as well.
It is inherently wrong though to assume Twitter is the same type of medium as FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+, Google Wallet or MySpace – it just is not a social network – it is a tool for social networking.
Donna L. Quesinberry
CEO-President
dpInk: DonnaInk Publications
(Copyright © dpInk: DonnaInk Publications. All Rights Reserved.)
This comment has not been edited and may be used in an upcoming story.
I’m with Gwynne. I joine Facebook to enjoy haring with an intimate collection of friends and family, most of whom are only comfortable sharing in a comfy walled garden. But Facebook’s changes, all geared to over-sharing in a way that makes it more marketable to advertisers, are driving those types of people away. My son (college junior) reports that many of his friends are dropping Facebook, and that he would, too, if it weren’t for his parents (<3!)
Well said. The HS yearbook is exactly why i cancelled Fartbook. I like my updates without having to look at all those old dummies.
“Facebook will always be your high school yearbook, while Twitter is the modern information ticker tape.” -Comment by Gary Honig