DISQUS

Joseph Morin · 2 months ago

Actually just had some discussions with friends on how we rarely even use Facebook anymore and now its all about Twitter. Yesterday my 18 year old daughter, a My Space fan who slowly and reluctantly moved over to Facebook only because her friends did, came up to me and said "You know what Dad?, I hate to admit it, but Twitter is kind of cool!" I'm seeing a lot of business models being built on Twitter especially on using the true benefit of Twitter - on driving offline monetization - (i.e. Tweetups) but don't see that much via Facebook. My money (literally) is on Twitter.

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Joseph, there's only so far Twitter can go with plain status updates.
Facebook has those. The only way Twitter will be able to grow to the size
of Facebook is by adding new features, and when that happens people will
realize they can get the same thing and more from Facebook. People saying
it's "cool" simply means it's a fad. My money (literally) is in Facebook,
and that's founded by concrete results. Good luck making money on Twitter
though.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

My money is literally in people. We are the core of any site or places value. Making real connections with people has trumped social site lifespans time and again.

On the flipside, developing for platforms that fade is costly, but at least beyond the interface, there's plenty of functionality we can take with us no matter where the information comes from.

Hope both you and Joseph both make out though :)

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Mark, if you like people, check out what Huffington post is doing by turning their readers into real people - here's a great recap on the success of what they're doing with Facebook Connect: http://ff.im/-aa27S

Lynette E Miller · 2 months ago

I didn't realized Facebook bought Friendfeed. Lots of new possibilties for both sides. I don't use Facebook as much as Twitter. After reading your points I will have to start promoting myself more on Facebook. I don't like being an open book of details yet that is how I feel with Facebook .

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Lynette, be sure to take advantage of your privacy settings. Facebook gives
you much more control over those details than Twitter does. Get to know
what you can do with it - it is very powerful!

partywedo · 2 months ago

Jesse,
Great David and Goliath imagery and details.. I am putting my money on the "Facebook Goliath" in this battle... literally!

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Yes, you are Bruce!

MariSmith · 2 months ago

Excellent post, Jesse!!! You totally have this Facebook thing *down*!!! heheeee. Glad to see you kicking your fan page up a notch - nice job! And way to go securing a 4-letter vanity - sweet!!!!

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Thanks Mari! I have a few connections ;-) I decided it was time to start
spending more time on my Facebook Page - Twitter just isn't doing it for me,
and already I'm starting to see results by focusing more on the Page. I
have to admit you inspired me a bit in that. Thanks for all your support
and help!

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

Jesse for me part of openess means that I own my social network list, and can freely share to any content I create or store at a site. I can use the data however I wish by embedding part of it on other sites far from a host site. I'm not confident Facebook is as open as you claim, sure you can search my stream, but if facebook goes away, or changes its rules, I can't simply walk away with all my contact info in tact. I can't "backup" my social network on my local system or elsewhere on the cloud.

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Mark, all that stuff is available via the API - nothing is stopping you as a
user from retrieving that. Check out the app
http://apps.facebook.com/rssnewsfeedreader/ and you can even get an RSS feed
for your news feed. Per the TOS, you own that information, and Facebook's
license on that information is revoked at the time you quit the site. With
Twitter that license never terminates.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

That's why I have to keep up with your blog. Much has changed with facebook in the past year. I'd really like to get a comfortable feeling for the API, certainly for developing personalized content filters.

Thanks Jesse.

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Mark, check out the filter tables in FQL for the API. There are some cool
things you can do with that.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

Before I begin digging in to facebook too much, I'll make sure to snag your book ;)

in the meantime we support rss, so I'll point interested users to the app you suggested.

Joseph Morin · 2 months ago

PS - i found this article via your Twitter feed ;)

Kim Landwehr · 2 months ago

If Twitter tries to compete with Facebook, then it will become a fail to me. Twitter strength is and always will be its simplicity. I have a Facebook account, but still find it confusing at times.

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Twitter's problem is that as just a status update company they can only grow
so much. The more Facebook simplifies, the more people will just use
Facebook to do that. So Twitter has to do something - do they compete
against Facebook? Personally, I'd rather just manage it all under one
network if the opportunity were presented.

Mark Essel · 2 months ago

I get confused as to what service we really can't get from software and Internet pipelines. Functionally facebook is fairly rich, but a large proportion of Americans aren't regular users of the service. Email is still the most prevelant social network, but building email apps, has had limited appeal (all the platforms/clients are too diverse).

So there's this gravitational pull to a single platform to focus developers, while at the same time this repulsive force of open decentralized data exchange and foster independent innovation.

I see the open protocol with the common interface winning out here but with centralized focus hubs of data. Something like the wordpress + disqus/echo model. I suppose Disqus could be mimicked with open software (single login across blogs), and comment aggregators could form based on their value. Maybe wave could succeed here, maybe Rss, but likely they'll be multiple protocols and methods of conversion between them.

The old software design philosophy of common data structures with customized views comes to mind. We need the best set of building blocks to help this technological evolution proceed towards higher efficiency and effectiveness. Identifying those fundamental best blocks is nontrivial though. Where did the amino acids of life originate from? Understanding this could aid in technological development.

Jesse Stay · 2 months ago

Mark, I think the more you learn about it, the more you'll realize Facebook
is open in the sense of the Disqus/Wordpress model. You can pull every
single Facebook connection onto your own website and link your own users
automatically using Facebook's APIs and tools. You get to own the
connections if you choose. Look at how Digg is doing it - any time one of
your friends logs into the Digg app on Facebook they automatically get added
as a friend on Digg. Digg is using the Facebook API to do this.