Facebook Claims: Twitter is “in the rear-view mirror”
Posted 09/21/09 at 12:20:17 AM by Justin Kerr
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If you’re a social networking news junky, you’ve likely been getting a kick out the ongoing battle between Facebook and Twitter. The two competing companies have been scrapping away for months now, but Facebook’s vice president of growth Chamath Palihapitiya is ready to call the war in favor Facebook claiming, “Twitter is in the rear-view mirror”. “To focus on a company with 40 million users that is not growing is not a good idea,” he said, citing Hitwise market share data as evidence of Twitter’s slowdown.
Based on the interview it appears Facebook still has a lot of respect for what Twitter has accomplished (imitation is the highest form of flattery after all), but clearly feels Google is the bigger competitor going forward. “Our task it to make sure we innovate and to make sure there’s no new upstart experience that could take users away.” If going after Google sounds like an unrealistic target, it’s worth noting that Facebook currently has over 300 million registered users, followed up by Yahoo at 600 million, and Google at a whopping 900 million.
Palihapitiya claims the future of Facebook lies in redefining the way people surf the web. He claims rather than simply turning to Google to find content, users will consume information largely based upon recommendations from friends. Can you see yourself setting Facebook to your homepage?
Loving the comments
Submitted by 1337Goose on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 3:12pm
The comments below are definitely interesting. I don't think social networking is useless, it's useful... unless you let it take over your life.
How do the people below (who have expressed their hatred for social networking) keep up with long distance friends?
~Goose
How many times?
Submitted by JDK on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 12:40pm
How many times have we seen social networking platforms come and go? For most of us this has happened numerous times and we know that both Facebook and Twitter have a limited lifespan in terms of main stream popularity. I would say Twitter is a fundamentally flawed concept and is merely a trend seeing is how theres other ways one can accomplish the same thing and not be limited by 140 characters or less....which lets face it...thats definitely just a fad because it isn't exactly logical. Not to mention Twitter actual active user numbers versus registered numbers. However, I dont imagine Facebook can have much left in them either. My space is all but dead (you know what I mean) and they too talked a big game when they were the newest trend on top.
And we as the end users just sit here not giving an actual sh*t about either and will all jump onto the next one when it inevitably comes along. And it will come....and Facebook and Twitter will then go the way of ICQ. My Space is leading that downhill charge currently grasping at straws trying to come up with ANY idea that can bring them back up but all they have to do is look at history to know they ALL have a shelf life and no one social networking platform is going to be the best one ever for ETERNITY!
It's just not going to happen.....ever.
Submitted by 1337Goose on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 3:10pm
I wouldn't say the concept of 140 chars or less is illogical. That's the max length for SMS messages.
Also, it's a lot more fun when you don't have to read essays written by your friends. 140 chars definitely limits the verbosity of twitter posts.
~Goose
Submitted by JDK on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 4:56am
"I wouldn't say the concept of 140 chars or less is illogical. That's the max length for SMS messages.
Also, it's a lot more fun when you don't have to read essays written by your friends. 140 chars definitely limits the verbosity of twitter posts."
Ok. Heres how logic works. For starters, you base the logic of twitter on SMS messages. I would ask you how is it logical that an SMS message is limited in the first place? It is after all an artificial limitation.
Furthermore.....and heres the logic trump card. My original post is well over 140 characters and you clearly read the entire thing.
So what were you saying?
Submitted by 1337Goose on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 2:46pm
Well, the people at twitter can't really do much about the 140 character SMS limit, they're just working with what they have. The entire twitter platform was originally based around SMS so that people could post remotely from their phones.
Also, your argument about me reading your original post is inherently flawed. I'm not saying that I will refuse to read any piece of writing longer than 140 characters. But let's be logical, if I'm following 50 people on twitter, and they all decide to post a 1400 character blog one day, I'll be reading about 40 pages if I actually decide to read it all. 1400 characters was the approximate length of your original post, by the way.
Also, you appear to be criticizing the two hallmarks that make twitter different from every other blogging site. If you remove SMS support and the character limit, you essentially have LiveJournal or Blogger. If SMS and 140 char limits are so prohibitive and undesirable, then why is twitter so popular?
~Goose
Submitted by JCBarry on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 11:04am
It's tough to say they are "fads" because to some degree, Facebook offers something that appeals to most people: photo sharing. I'd be willing to bet many people could do without the bulk of features on Facebook, but they would miss the ability to share photos with their friends and family. Obviously, there are other ways to do this (and do it better) but the general public has seemed to latch on Facebook's easy sharing approach.
Twitter, on the other hand, could be on it's way out. I'm not exactly sure how it found its way in to begin with.
Jay Barry
MaxPC Profile | Jason Barry
Submitted by WALT_OWNS_YOUR_FACE on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 9:47am
Facebook and Twitter are just a silly fad. In a few years, their importance will start declining just like Myspace. Sooner or later, the majority will realize that they don't care if their friend just ate a bowl of cereal 11 minutes ago and they'll find something better to kill time with.
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 8:24am
Both site suck and are only used be retards
Submitted by popstop785 on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 7:16am
I used Twitter for about a year. The politcal crap of the election took over. I couldn't log on without reading "I'm goign to make history" or "Change!!" so I started to log in less. Then Opra signed up for twitter... that was the last straw and I bailed.
yes, but it's really 100 real people and....
Submitted by keithfreitag on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 6:07am
yes, but it's really 100 real people and 899,999,900 pron/spam/scam/nigerian BOTS that make up the rest of the user base on all these networks.
Keith
PS - Steve Jobs is the devil and he hates brocolli.
Submitted by strykyr on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 5:01am
I don't do Twitter, facebook or pedosapce. I have no interest in any of them. I don't need to be informed when someone takes a crap. Nor am I interested in kids. And I don't want some bean counter tracking my activities just for the sake of doing it. If the United States Gevernment can monitor their member lists to watch for pedophiles, that is a list I don't want anything to do with.
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