Comments on: Facebook’s latest move to show Twitter who’s boss http://ryanjsloan.com/blog/facebooks-latest-move-to-show-twitter-whos-boss/ Thoughts on computing, the web and technology Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:11:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Nicholas Johnson http://ryanjsloan.com/blog/facebooks-latest-move-to-show-twitter-whos-boss/#comment-569 Nicholas Johnson Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:07:29 +0000 http://ryanjsloan.com/blog/?p=43#comment-569 Here is an article describing a phenomenon called Spymaster that gripped Twitter earlier this year. It brings up some important issues about the control and privacy options (which are currently limited) on Twitter. As the service begins to be used more and more by blogs, news feeds, and applications, the assumption that all users will always want an unrestricted flow of information from their friends breaks down. Also of note is that phenomena like this are essentially exploiting a service not designed with such applications in mind. Of course, many web services start simple and grow as users push new uses, but the question remains if phenomena like this are anecdotal, or will they become the Twitter norm? Will the user base continue to expand the uses of Twitter, and, if so, will the administration respond by implementing new or enhanced privacy controls and upping the robustness of the service so that it can better handle such uses? http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/29/spy-vs-spy-the-spymaster-backlash-begins-and-twitter-needs-to-fix-it/ Here is an article describing a phenomenon called Spymaster that gripped Twitter earlier this year. It brings up some important issues about the control and privacy options (which are currently limited) on Twitter. As the service begins to be used more and more by blogs, news feeds, and applications, the assumption that all users will always want an unrestricted flow of information from their friends breaks down. Also of note is that phenomena like this are essentially exploiting a service not designed with such applications in mind. Of course, many web services start simple and grow as users push new uses, but the question remains if phenomena like this are anecdotal, or will they become the Twitter norm? Will the user base continue to expand the uses of Twitter, and, if so, will the administration respond by implementing new or enhanced privacy controls and upping the robustness of the service so that it can better handle such uses?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/29/spy-vs-spy-the-spymaster-backlash-begins-and-twitter-needs-to-fix-it/

]]> By: Nicholas Johnson http://ryanjsloan.com/blog/facebooks-latest-move-to-show-twitter-whos-boss/#comment-554 Nicholas Johnson Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:48:55 +0000 http://ryanjsloan.com/blog/?p=43#comment-554 This is going to be a fascinating run off-- I believe it will have the intensity of the MySpace/Facebook showdowm but with very dissimilar results; in that confrontation, the two rivals were misunderstood as symmetric services and direct competitors. Twitter and Facebook though offer quite different environments, but, as you mentioned, Facebook already has a mini-twitter embedded in the form of the updated status stream (goodbye, wall, rest in peace), so it is not much of a stretch to see Facebook absorbing a lot of status traffic from existing users. Twitter, though, has very limited features compared to Facebook and so would struggle to gain territory against Facebook and it's well established user base. Because of this flexibility that Facebook has to perform a role similar to Twitter AND MORE, I would put my money behind Facebook. I don't see the two services living in harmony because in a time of rapid information source consolidation (iGoogle, RSS feeds, data streams), less means more. But, if Twitter fails to monetize, what would be the point in competing? I assume they already share a substantial user base, so if there is no money and few users to compete over, why should Facebook even bother acquiring Twitter? (That is a legitimate question, I'm pretty uninformed on the business aspect of Web 2.0) This is going to be a fascinating run off– I believe it will have the intensity of the MySpace/Facebook showdowm but with very dissimilar results; in that confrontation, the two rivals were misunderstood as symmetric services and direct competitors. Twitter and Facebook though offer quite different environments, but, as you mentioned, Facebook already has a mini-twitter embedded in the form of the updated status stream (goodbye, wall, rest in peace), so it is not much of a stretch to see Facebook absorbing a lot of status traffic from existing users. Twitter, though, has very limited features compared to Facebook and so would struggle to gain territory against Facebook and it’s well established user base.
Because of this flexibility that Facebook has to perform a role similar to Twitter AND MORE, I would put my money behind Facebook. I don’t see the two services living in harmony because in a time of rapid information source consolidation (iGoogle, RSS feeds, data streams), less means more. But, if Twitter fails to monetize, what would be the point in competing? I assume they already share a substantial user base, so if there is no money and few users to compete over, why should Facebook even bother acquiring Twitter? (That is a legitimate question, I’m pretty uninformed on the business aspect of Web 2.0)

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