Last month, Jason Calacanis wrote he’d pay $250,000 to be listed as a Twitter “Suggested Follow” for two years. Getting on Twitter’s “suggested” list can drive hundred of thousands of people to follow a Twitter feed.
Facebook has taken notice, and this weekend has started recommending Facebook fan pages of some public personas and brand on its own site. (Sarah Lacy, Julia Allison, and Mark Cuban have all already made Facebook’s list.)
Nothing wrong with imitation. Nor is it the first time Facebook has looked to Twitter for inspiration. Facebook’s recent redesign to emphasize real-time updates also took a cue from Twitter.
It seems like Facebooks is doing everything wrong. Facebook v2 totally annihilated any usefulness for Facebook applications… now Facebook v3 totally killed everything else but the stream … it seems like a giant over-elaborated, over-complicated, over-architected, over-scoped Twitter with some minor add-ons no one seem to care about anymore such as photo albums, apps, groups, and fan pages … Personally, I used to login to Facebook every day, now maybe once every week or two… grants, Facebook is still the fastest growing site, stats say that more people login to Facebook every day than people watched the superbowl, some analysis say that Facebook will have more traffic than Google in a few years… but I really want to see if there’s a dropoff in growth rate with the new design … who actually like it?
April 21st, 2009 at 2:35 am
Well, I like it so much that I’m not even using it anymore…
As you say, now, Facebook is just an “over-elaborated, over-complicated, over-architected, over-scoped Twitter”.
And the rest of it(pictures, videos, etc) falls under the “All your base are belong to us” no-definitely-no category.
The thing is, even here in France(?), Twitter is still not mainstream, whereas any person wanting to renetwork with “old pals” knows about Facebook.
Once Twitter get mainstream, and once “we” find a way of “connecting friends” without all the Facebook hassles, I guess we’ll indeed see some kind of dropoff in the growth, or, even better/worse, a decline?
April 21st, 2009 at 2:44 am
Since the redesign I’ve used Twitter less and less, I find it so obtrusive now and now pushing recommended fan pages will push me away even further. At least with Twitter you can decide if you wish to view the Suggested Follow section, but undoubtedly Facebook will shove it in our faces with no opportunity to turn it off. Not good.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:45 am
Whoops, no prizes for spotting the mistake in the opening sentence, meant to say Facebook, not Twitter, obviously!
April 21st, 2009 at 2:48 am
Although I do agree on the fact Facebook has been stealing some bits from Twitter lately, you are totally wrong on this one. “Suggested follow” is featured on Facebook for months now and Twitter was the one copying.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:01 am
Hi Rob, I think that everytime there’s a new release people are complaining. It ‘s a human behvior afterall.
I think evertime they change the interface , they are thinking about everything ans mainly the user experience (and indeed how to make money too :p).
It’s a good thing to be open minded and take the good ideas from everywhere. Why they can’t copy ? Look at Microsoft, for a long time they have done everything in their way, they ‘ve changed a few years ago and take the best things from everywhere. And Look at Windows 7 I think it will be very successful.
I’m still using facebook to see my friends’ albums, and a lot of people are sharing videos, or playing with, in my opinion, useless applications. It means that everyone uses facebook differently ! It ‘s a good thing.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I find this post amusingly ironic after i just sent this to my friend 5 days ago:
“I’m boycotting facebook as a useless invasion of privacy. They made it too complicated, fancy and advert laden.
Idiots.”
While my profile is still there, do not expect any response. A mere phantom, left to fade into bug-ridden obscurity at the rear end of a google landfill.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I think your analysis is bang-on and matches my own experience. Yes, there is nothing wrong with imitation but a service-provider should only adopt and imitate new services if it corresponds to its core service, function, or idea.
Facebook has re-modeled itself almost to irrelevancy for me. Facebook worked because it was a personal space where I could easily communicate with a lot of friends with whom I wouldn’t otherwise communicate. Now, I don’t even notice when people I want to hear from write on my wall because of all the noise. Ultimately, I suspect Facebook will end up being little more than a glorified address book for most people.
Sure, its growth will continue as late-adopters play catch-up but when they get there the magic that was Facebook will be long gone. Twitter isn’t the replacement to Facebook but some other service might fill the niche Facebook left behind.