Thank God there is a 'Silent Mode' option in every mobile phone otherwise we would have been overwhelmed by continuous buzz -tweet...tweet...ping...ping..tweet...ping. In this digital era, we remain connected with our friends, relatives, near and dear ones even if we are far away from them. Thanks to modern facilities like usage of social websites through mobile devices and internet. Facebook and Twitter are two main platforms of our social bonding on digital devices. Nowadays either we tweet tweet or ping ping.
Facebook was launched by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his college roommates, in February 2005. It was initially only intended for Harvard students, but eventually expanded among students of other educational institutions like Boston colleges, Ivy League universities, and Stanford. The site gradually became available to students of other universities and high schools. In September 2006, it finally became available to any users over 13. On May 17th 2012, the website went public. Facebook received a US$ 500,000 investment from Peter Thiel in 2004. In April 2005, Accel Partners made a $ 12.7 million venture capital investment making Facebook's value of $ 98 million. Facebook also received $ 27.5 million in funding from various investors in 2006, leading to a value of around $ 500 million. In 2007, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share for $ 240 million, leading to a total implied value of $ 15 billion. Facebook was valued at $ 104 billion in 2014.
Twitter was founded on March 21st 2006 by Jack Dorsey and was launched on July 5th 2006. Twitter tends to be fairly secretive about its number of users, but it had explosive growth between 2009 and 2011, with 2 million tweets a day in January 2009, 32 million tweets a day in January 2010, 90 million tweets a day in September 2010 and 200 million tweets a day in July 2011. Twitter was originally developed by the podcasting company Odeo. It has raised over $ 155 million in venture capital since 2006. Its third round of funding, in February 2009, raised $ 35 million, while in October 2009 the private-equity firm Insight Venture Partners invested $ 100 million in the site. In 2011, Twitter was valued at around $ 10 billion.
Facebook founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented: "Facebook is about connecting everyone & improving the world through sharing." On the other hand, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo also remarked: "I see Twitter as the global town square. Its mission is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers." We can see both visions overlap in a way. Both of them cater for "everyone" and they believe in opening up the world through sharing. However, a subtle difference can be noticed after minute observation is that - Facebook talks about "connecting" whereas Twitter talks about "ideas and information. May be this is the reason why we see Facebook as a true social network whereas Twitter as more of an information network. Both connection and information play valuable roles, but over time, depending on the focus of our lives, we will ultimately favour one over the other in deciding where to focus our social attention.
While Facebook is a multi-purpose social networking platform with allowance of chat, post photos and notes and play games, Twitter is built around the posting of short 140 character messages, or "tweets." They are the two most popular social networks in the world. In this article we will look for the areas where Facebook and Twitter connect, where they overlap and play similar roles and where they differ significantly. So basically we will be focusing on the key battlegrounds for Facebook and Twitter.
On the other side, due to its huge user numbers, if there's a big event on, we are likely to hear what our friends and perhaps their friends are saying about it on Facebook, but we are less likely to get the full range of views from across the whole of the world.
By contrast, Twitter's news feed can be rather raw and unfiltered, but that has actually proved an attraction for people wanting to follow celebrities and get an insight into their daily lives. Again, Facebook belatedly introduced fan pages that you could 'like', but whereas updates from musicians and film stars on Facebook can sometimes seem a bit scripted and the work of the PR department whereas on Twitter, there's a direct interaction between celebrities that intrigues users. Tweeter also provides a chance that a fan's comments or replies might get read directly and 'retweeted' by the celebrity. So we can conclude, Twitter wins here, as Facebook has been too slow to catch it up on real-time news.
Field of social bonding
Here Facebook has the edge - reflecting the emphasis of connection over information in its mission statement. One can follow anyone he or she likes on Twitter - which results in a lot of one-way connections if they don't follow back whereas Facebook friend requests require mutual consent. This usually means that one ends up with more 'real' connections of people he or she actually knows.
Facebook has options of filtering out the noise from those so-called "friends" it has calculated one is less interested in, and giving him or her more from closer friends. Brands and people that one has "liked" are also now added to the mix and competing for user's attention as Facebook changed the rules so that (without paying to advertise), individual updates would only be broadcast to a small portion of their "fans." By contrast, Twitter default setting is "Most Recent," and if one follows a lot of people, his or her News Feed can quickly degenerate into an unmanageable and unintelligible mess. One can organize users into lists of interest or topic area, but this feature has unfortunately been buried in recent updates to the site. Ultimately, Facebook has the edge when it comes to keeping in touch with friends and family, and filtering what it thinks we want to see.
Field of customization
Our profile page on our favoured social network is a statement of who we are, what we're about, and who we want to project to the outside world. Both networks have similar tools to enable us to customize our page with profile pictures, cover images and headline statements, which to a certain extent allow us to create carefully crafted and idealized versions of ourselves.
Facebook pushes us to use our real-world name and identity, and its controversial "Timeline" feature is quite literally a lifelong history of one's every move on its network. On Twitter, less information is required to register, and we can be more anonymous if we so choose. If Facebook is a bit like a digital scrapbook for our lives, where we share both the big and the small things with friends, Twitter is more like a digital soapbox, where we share our big and small views and ideas with the whole world.
Here, Twitter fills an interesting middle ground between Facebook and LinkedIn, which is more for purely professional talk. On Twitter, many professionals tweet on work-related topics and contribute to the relevant hashtags - hoping that they will build a following over time - whereas on Facebook such shop-talk might risk boring or alienating friends and family. Those wanting to craft such a professional or public identity on Facebook are forced to set up separate "Pages." However, as we switch from sharing words, to sharing photos and increasingly video, Facebook is better positioned. With the 140-character limit and text focus, photo-sharing is still something of a niche activity on Twitter. Many photography enthusiasts now flock to Facebook's Instagram. So we spend a lot of time creating our digital profiles and identities on these sites, and fleshing them out with shared updates.
Although one can sign in Twitter on various websites, in terms of integration with other services, Facebook still has an edge.
Field of privacy and integrity
Facebook allows users to select from various privacy settings, from a completely visible profile to one that is not even searchable except by acknowledged friends. Users can change the privacy setting on each individual post, from public, friends only, private, or "custom."
Twitter has two privacy settings: public and private. Private messages can only be read by people that are followed by the user. Individual messages cannot have different privacy settings.
Twitter and Facebook can be integrated. Tweets can be posted to Facebook automatically using the Twitter app. Twitter widgets can be added to a website or blog and can be integrated with Instagram. Some websites allow users to sign in using Twitter.
Conclusion
For now, many of us will probably continue to use a bucket of different apps and social platforms. As the most promising apps are acquired by the bigger players, that bucket will consolidate over time. Overall, who gets our social attention comes down to what we value the most - connection or information? The ultimate social network might find a way to be brilliant at both. In the information and ideas bucket, Twitter is better than anyone and it will continue to have an important role to play. Yet, as it broadens its role in the social media world, Facebook will give Twitter a tough fight.
Email: priyanka.strath@gmail.com
Tweet Tweet or Ping Ping!!!
Priyanka Das | Published: March 28, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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