Facebook announced today that it was buying social-aggregator
FriendFeed, a site that combines updates from a variety of social networking sites into one central "hub." The move comes after a
failed attempt by Facebook to acquire social and media-darling, Twitter, late last year/early this year.
Why did Facebook suddenly feel the need to purchase a company that doesn't really compete with it? It seems as though
Facebook has been hurt by the amount of traffic Twitter receives on a daily basis, even though it does not claim nearly as many subscribers as the blue-and-white-logoed behemoth. FriendFeed can give Facebook a chance to be not just a simple quiz and poll repository, but a way for people to communicate in real time while keeping their eyes on Facebook's ads - I mean site.
Millions of people all over the world have Facebook accounts in order to keep in touch with friends and family, share multimedia and take a bevy of tests that calculate what Pretty in Pink character they're most like (I'm Ducky). The problem Facebook, well, faces is that once you post your updates and check everyone else's - that's it. You leave the site for awhile and come back later on to follow up on your friends. There is only so much one can do on Facebook because eventually the user "dead-ends." Most subscribers block their updates from non-friends, leaving the user with a finite number of friends with whom to contact and not much else to do.
Twitter is and always has been an ongoing conversation. There are no profiles to maintain, quizzes to take, or apps to install so you can send your followers bumper-stickers. Twitter is all about communication and it is for that reason that it poses such a threat to Facebook. During the Iran election crisis last month, while sites like YouTube and Facebook were blocked,
Twitter made it possible for protesters and journalists to get their messages out to the world. Twitter has been discussed on dozens of news outlets and when the service (as well as Facebook) was brought down by a denial-of-service attack late last week (which as of now, it's still feeling the hurt from), the story was featured all over the mainstream media. How were people supposed to tweet that Twitter was down?
There's no mistake in saying that Twitter is popular. Part of its appeal comes from the fact that it puts celebrities and athletes on the same level as us mere mortals. Combine that with an endless stream of information and an endless supply of apps from which to tweet and you've got yourself a blockbuster social networking success. Twitter is an addictive, crack-like service that keeps you wanting more. Though, so is Facebook - and that's not necessarily bad.
Several people on Twitter have hoped that the new Facebook/FriendFeed conglomerate will demolish Twitter. Why? Why can't both exist? Why
shouldn't both exist? We, as people of a digital age, require multiple routes of communication because dependence on only a few services would be detrimental to our society as we've built it. Imagine another, stronger DoS attack hits our primary lines of communication, be them Twitter and/or Facebook/FriendFeed, and brings them down for more than a few hours. What about more than a day? Most of us now depend on these services to keep up with current events and each other. Without those main avenues for both receiving and sending information available, we become lost. Mainstream media does not work fast enough and many who work in offices during the day do not have access to televisions or radios.
I believe that this merger/buy-out/acquisition won't bring about the end of Twitter, but rather a new renaissance of social innovation. "Facefeed" or "Friendbook" - whatever you decide to call it - should be a combination of the best things both services have to offer. If Facebook tackles the acquisition logically, they will pull from the parts of FriendFeed that work best and toss out the junk. It is entirely possible that Facebook could wind up with its own Twitter-like service that integrates seamlessly with its parent site, as well as others like Delicious and StumbleUpon. Similar to what Google is doing with its
Wave service, Facebook could be on the verge of implementing true "real-time web" - no refreshing, no waiting. If Twitter hopes to succeed, then it must be ready to up the ante with more advanced features, better security, and 99% uptime.
Those who spend the majority of their lives on the Internet demand high-quality, low-cost services that allow them to both communicate with their loved ones and feed their lust for continuous information. There can't be one social networking service, nor should there be. Choice is what makes the Internet work and it's why we have a dozen URL shorteners, 50 credit report services, and 900 places to buy restless leg syndrome medication. I hope that only good comes out of Facebook buying FriendFeed and that it leads to better featured, more compelling experiences on the web. If not, I'll find a few college students and build my own.
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