Wednesday, February 18, 2009

We all know that the social media bubble is at its peak, Facebook is one of the most successful social networking sites ever and it has got a vast pool of celebrities using it. Since the sites launch it has grown to become a type of necessity in world culture. Most people that use the site are very active users and they obsessively check there profiles every day as well as browsing their friend's profiles.

Twitter on the other hand is a simple micro blogging site where users can update their status bars and allow their followers to hear their shouts. The site is relatively new, but has recently had a lot of media coverage due to the rise in celebrity stars using the service.

It is rumored that Facebook offered Twitter over five hundred million dollars in Facebook stock for the site, but Twitter turned it down. But could this end up being a serious mistake made at there end?

A lot of people (mainly Facebook users) do not really understand the need for a service such as Twitter, as Facebook has its own status update section. What is more intriguing though, is the news that Facebook have opened up there API for the status bar section. Which is ultimately what in fact made Twitter the site that it currently is. There is currently a lot of talk about Facebook killing Twitter. So let's take a quick glance at the reasons why Twitter may or may not last.

Social networking sites are just like search engines, one of the most important facts is how the site is built. Plenty of social networking sites do not stand the test of time simply because there technologies are not advanced enough.

An example of what I am trying to say is to turn our attention to Google. Google simply revolutionized the search with their technology. This is why over the past decade they have shrugged off any rival search engine and will continue to do so unless someone invents a better way of search. The site cannot be cloned or copied because it is just too advanced.

Ok social networking is not exactly the same, each site offers something different but it's the same core principle, the reason that Facebook will be around for a long time is because it is very hard to duplicate and they have created a solid platform with a great business model in mind.

Twitter on the other hand has none of this, although the site is great for connecting with people in the same niche, it has got nothing to keep a user there. I see twitter as a passing phase in the networking industry. That come this time next year will be saturated with clones. Heck! we are already starting to see the clones popping up left right and centre, simply because the site is too easy to replicate, it just has not got too much thought behind it, one of the main reasons that Digg is losing popularity is because it has just become over saturated with copycats and people are just getting fed up. Have you ever seen a copycat of Google? A search engine that is able to deliver such accurate results? Twitter just saw what other people have done and (Facebook status bar) and increased it a notch, I don't know if Facebook status bar will wipe Twitter out, but Twitter will probably end up picking there own fate, just as a lot of other social sites have such as Digg.