The other day I wrote about wanting to be allowed to shoot anyone who tries to propagate the ol’ Service A kills Service B silliness. It’s a good thing then that I like Mark Dykesman because for some reason a normally smart man has fallen into this trap.
In a post yesterday Mark posits that Twitter will die before Facebook and yes on the surface he makes some interesting points
Twitter is a limited platform that is unlikely to evolve. Gen Y and younger (not to mention members of Gen X and older) can do Twitter in their sleep. But, it probably doesn’t do everything they want to do. They aren’t into just reading text. Yes, you can send links via Twitter, but each extra click you add is a barrier to it being used.
Facebook can basically do everything that Twitter can do, plus a whole lot more. To some people, Facebook is the Web because it’s a portal to other things. You can share photos on it. You can write your notes. You can share links. You can keep track of your friends. You can spend hours on it playing Flash games. And so on.
Twitter? You can send text messages. But only short ones. With links. But unless you have an extra app loaded, you really don’t know what the links are until you click on them.
Facebook could eventually die as well. It probably will die someday. It has its own limits and it may yet be replaced by a better (read: open) platform.
But which will die first? Twitter, no question in my mind. It may take 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or longer, but Twitter will eventually die because simple tools only last until something equally simpler, cheaper, easier to use and more powerful comes along. We’ve seen it over and over again with different kinds of technology. The same thing will likely happen to Facebook. But I think Twitter will die first.
Interesting points and ya as I said – on the surface they appear to be quite valid. Except there is one big glaring problem that Mark, and others who feel the same are missing.
Comparing Twitter and Facebook is exactly like trying to compare apples to oranges.
Regardless of the fact that Facebook has tried to mimic what Twitter does it cannot, and will not be able to match it. They are two totally different beasts and occupy two totally different ecospheres within the larger web. It is precisely because of the simplicity of Twitter that it is slowly becoming a part of the plumbing that is the web. Facebook is the high-rise apartment building sitting on top of the web.
There have been contenders for the Twitter crown before and both Pwnce and Jaiku had a richer user option interface. Where are they now? Gone.
There are current attempts to copy the success of Twitter and yet Indenti.ca and Plurk are still nothing more than plumbing wannabes.
So as much as we all might like to get the gossip train going the fact is that Twitter isn’t going anywhere soon and neither is Facebook – they serve two totally different needs.
Steven:
It’s a good thing that I didn’t stray too far into the “service A would kill service B” firing range that you’ve set, I see.
I never actually said that Facebook would kill Twitter, although the post title “Facebook will triumph over Twitter” might lead you to think that. I implied that Facebook would outlast Twitter and it’s capable of doing virtually everything that Twitter can do. The point of my post, referencing back to Lisa Barone’s post which I was commenting on, was that IF Twitter died, Facebook could fill the void, no problem.
Another consideration in this regard is the fact that, over time, more sophisticated technology replaces simpler technology, especially when it has matured and the public is ready for it. Digital audio player technology was around for awhile before Apple turned the world on making a player a must have item. Hardly anyone buys CDs or portable CD players anymore. However, the MP3 player takes the same basic functionality of the CD player (portable music) and does a lot more with the concept.
Yes, the two websites are apples and oranges. Facebook is a destination, a portal, a multi-functional tool. Twitter is a more specialized tool and doesn’t really pretend to be anything more than that. Again, however, IF Twitter died, a service like Facebook is probably the best current alternative to replace it, not withstanding the limitations that I mentioned in my post.
Incidentally, I’m not convinced that Twitter has a (very)long term future. Yes, there are lots of ways that Twitter is ingraining itself into our economy and culture. You may be right that it is becoming part of the plumbing of the Web, although plumbing is never noticed until it leaks or stops working. It may become a background service that gets used in more flexible ways than it is today, but if someone made a superior, more powerful service that made it very easy to move your network and history to it, I think people would move there.
Twitter is like a prototype of a powerful messaging/microblogging/community service, but why the hell should we think that it’s the service of the future and that it will last for a decade or longer? What other precedents are out there to suggest that this is a viable or probable life cycle for the product? And I don’t think that Twitter is really an unprecedented product and the rulebook is still being written because Twitter is so new and so different. But that’s just an opinion.
Now, one reason that Twitter might outlast Facebook is that Facebook does stand a good chance of completely alienating its existing user base if it were to continually do stupid, evil, annoying, and harmful stuff to its user base. Like: rewriting significant parts of its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities; mucking about with its security settings; allowing applications to use and abuse personal information; and containing a lot of pointless crap. But if Twitter were to die, despite whatever weaknesses it would have, I think that Facebook is the logical application to fill the void.
Unless, of course, someone invents a better replacement to Facebook and it actually catches on.
.-= Mark Dykeman´s last blog ..Someone interviewed me for a change and some disclosure =-.