Facebook is Trying to be Twitter

Before anyone argues the point, it’s clear that Twitter is popular now for its news-sharing capabilities. People love to find out information and news via Twitter. Not only that, but news companies like @Mashable, @TIME and @Engadget use Twitter to broadcast and share their news. It’s an innovative and useful way to make sure that your content is spread around.

And because of that it’s become increasingly popular for not only businesses to spread the news around but it’s also a way for users to find out about information – Twitter’s trending topics, a bit like Facebook’s ‘News feed’ (sigh) has been a classic way to see what’s going on since Twitter started. For example, on the day Apple released the Magic Mouse, ‘Magic Mouse’ was a trending topic. That’s how I found out about the release, anyhow.

Facebook, however, is famous for connecting friends – but it’d seem that’s not what it wants to do. Facebook have been criticized for trying to grab a slice of Twitter’s fame for a long time, most recently for it’s ‘@mentions’, exactly the same concept as @mentions on Twitter. And even more recently, have you noticed the recent attempt at pushing your Status Updates to ‘Everyone’? That doesn’t mean everyone on your friends list. That means the whole world. And that’s what makes it kinda obvious what Facebook is wanting to do.

An example of what Facebook are aiming to do.

Because of Twitter’s growing popularity, I guess Facebook could be jealous. Twitter is stealing users away from it. But under no circumstances do I feel it is appropriate to slyly allow users to give away all their data, in an attempt to become a news-sharing site. Images like the one to the right are just classic examples of the changes Facebook is making to try and emphasize news.

People on Facebook don’t wanna share news though – they want to connect with friends and chat. And that’s all I really use it for. That’s all most people use it for. A few businesses encourage users to subscribe to information and share with friends, but nowhere near as much as Twitter.

Facebook, you’re not a news-sharing site. Don’t try to steal Twitter’s spotlight, either.