Facebook More Like Twitter

The people at Facebook know a good thing when they see it. Facebook tried to acquire Twitter a few months back, but Twitter execs still think they are on the verge of finding a revenue model that works and want to make a go of it on their own thank you very much. So instead of buying Twitter, Facebook did the next best thing by becoming more like it.

This past week Facebook rolled out its new design that lo and behold looked a lot like the Twitter home page. This twitterfication was not met with open arms by a lot of the Facebook community. Some people don’t like change, and this is the second time that Facebook has made such a change within a year.

So what’s new in Facebook? Status updates now ask a different question. Rather than asking “What are you doing” and following it with “(your name) is”, Facebook now asks “What’s on your mind” and drops your name. This lets status updates be about anything you like, kind of like…um…Twitter. Old habit die hard though. I’ve noticed many people posting status messages to fit the previously mandatory “(your name) is” insertion. It still works that way, but at least now you have the option to post something other than what you’re doing and not have it be grammatically incorrect.

Facebook also has a news feed that looks like a complete rip off of Twitter. Users have a timeline that updates with the latest posts of their friends, including everything from status updates to photo posts. Wall posts even show up in the timeline in a simlar was as replies in Twitter. Rather than using the @ symbol, Facebook uses an arrow to show where the post is going from and to. (username1 —>username2)

What’s this mean for Twitter? Nothing really. There’s no doubt Twitter is gaining in popularity, but it’s really a hard thing for some people to understand even with the help of Twitter in Plain English. Those they get it love it. Those that don’t understand hate it. Those that use Twitter and Facebook understand what Facebook is trying to do. They’re really two different groups of people, and two services which I believe can sustain themselves seperately, unlike Myspace which is facing a real challenge now from Facebook.

The real question I have is can Twitter come up with a business model? They keep getting capital shoved their way, yet I haven’t seen any steps toward monetizing Twitter yet. If they don’t do it soon, Facebook my finally aquire what it’s trying to emulate.