The debate has been raging for ages (at least in Internet time).
Facebook was once the “contender” against MySpace. That didn’t last too long, but soon Twitter emerged as a pseudo-social-network-competitor-thingy to Facebook and the competition heated up again.
Whether or not that competition is valid is arguable since:
- Twitter incorporates the communication and sharing aspect of social networking but is in many ways easier defined as a microblogging news aggregation site, sort of.
- Facebook has nearly 10 times more users, hundreds more features, and thousands more apps.
- Twitter has a clear business model, but only a dozen people in the universe know exactly what that is, while Facebook has dozens of business models, but nobody in the universe knows exactly what they are.
Still, these and many other glaring differences do not take away from the human need to compare the two and argue about them since they are the biggest “buzz” in social media right now (sorry Google).
Here, you will find several pieces of content that take the argument in one direction or another. Some bring up MySpace, LinkedIn, or other social networks. Rather than rehash them, I’ll give them to you to decide what goes where. Why rehash when we have the power of “link and regurgitate”? After all, that’s the way of the Internet today.
Facebook vs Twitter Infographic
(via Flickr)
Articles that (attempt to) Answer the Question of “Twitter vs Facebook”
- Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang)
- Moving Pixels: Facebook vs Twitter (Pop Matters)
- Facebook vs. Twitter Clickthroughs: More Bang For Your Buck (htmlist)
- Twitter Versus Facebook, A Comparison Of The Top Users (AllFacebook)
- Sharing on Facebook vs. Sharing on Twitter (Digital Inspiration)
- Buzz vs. Facebook vs. Twitter and Us (The Relationship Economy)
- Fight: Facebook vs Google vs Twitter (iTWire)
- Web Faceoff: Twitter vs. Facebook (Mashable)
- Twitter vs. Facebook Analysis: What Users Want (Internet News)
- Twitter vs. Facebook – Battle of the Social Goliaths (Inventor Spot)
- Twitter versus Facebook: Should you Choose One? (Twitip)
- Facebook vs. Twitter: How will you stream your world? (CNet)
- Twitter vs. Facebook: Who Will Win in Real-time Search? (Mashable)
- Tools of choice: Twitter vs. Facebook (Social Media Today)
- The Coming Facebook-Twitter Collision (Business Week)
Twitter vs Facebook Cartoon
(via Hubspot)
Facebook vs Twitter on the iPhone
Another Facebook vs Twitter Infographic
(via TheNextWeb)
It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of preference. Most Twitter users use Facebook. Most very active Facebook users are on Twitter now or will be sometime this year. Whatever it takes to enjoy, share, learn, and engage, that’s what is important. Who will win in the end?
Us.
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Read more about Twitter and Facebook on this Social Media Blog.
This post was written by...
JD Rucker – who has written 514 posts on Soshable | Social Media Blog. JD Rucker is a social media enthusiast who resides in Orange County, California. He works simultaneously for 2 companies - TK Carsites (an Automotive Internet Marketing Firm) and Hasai (a Social Media Strategy Firm). He writes for several publications including BusinessInsider, Fast Company, Techi, Top Cultured, and ICanHasInternets. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I really appreciate your post on this JD. However, I’m getting a little annoyed by all these “Facebook vs. Twitter” posts. I do like your post the most even because of all that because it seems to be the most informative.
The reason I’m annoyed is that I hear people asking all the time, “Which is better: Twitter or Facebook?” and there really is no answer. Like you said, “At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of preference”.
They both do different and sometimes similar things but you shouldn’t just rule out one and not the other. I’m sure you and others can agree.
Hey JD great post and graph. I think there’s a pretty large difference between the two that makes it awfully hard to compare.
I personally use Facebook in more of a private way of communication and sharing. Sure, for the most part everyone who I’ve accepted as friends can see what I do, unless I make it private…but still I’ve gone through a process to let those people into my network.
With Twitter, mostly everything is public to the world…I have no control of letting someone following me (which is fine, just different) so I use it differently knowing that.
I like to think of Facebook as my private place to share things with friends that I’ve “let in” my network and Twitter as a place to share things with the world.
To take things one step further, this is how I compare Facebook, Twitter, and the new Google Buzz.
Facebook: Private place where I have conversations with people who I’ve allowed to into my network and see what I want
Twitter: Public place for me to shoot out quick messages and links. Similar to a public text message
Google Buzz: A place to have public conversations…a mesh between Twitter’s public network and Facebook’s conversational and embedding network.
Great Post, nonetheless
Ken
-leftos.com
Couldn’t agree more. I think it is personal preference for face book or twitter.
Important to remember is that we all keep chatting and keep in touch.
The human race rules.
I have yet to join the Twitter world because I get all that I need from Facebook and Linked In, and i’m not really into following somebody or being followed by somebody.
I think the comparison of Facebook vs. Twitter’s applications on the iPhone is a good place to analyze the user friendly capabilities of the two social media networks. Today with the growing number of consumers that have internet access on their phones, and also have the Facebook application on their phone, they want an application to work just like Facebook.com does on their computer. People want everything to be accessed on the go and through their mobile phone.
Twitter’s numbers show that it is growing fast and it won’t be long before it has matched Facebook with the same amount of users, and becomes the number one social media tool on the web. I feel as though people are going to move from Facebook, to Twitter to Google Wave to the next latest and greatest social media tool.
I think users will eventually get tired and bored with a site and then they will be willing and ready for the next social network to join. Myspace got boring for most users because it didn’t have enough features and users started receiving viruses on their Myspace page.
Thanks for this very informative post I learned a lot, but it really does come down to which one you like.
Thanks,
Chelsea
facebook is may gusto heeheh
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