Some time ago, I was faced with the task of explaining Twitter to someone who hadn’t, till then, heard of it. I told her to imagine Facebook minus all features except the status bar. She instantly got it. What do you think this means?
If I had to define Twitter in one word, I would simply say that it is an interface. Think about it.
Apart from the interface, there really is nothing that keeps Facebook and Twitter from turning into each other. Of course, an interface is never just an interface.
It is the interface which ends up deciding what kind of conversations a platform will encourage. It is the interface which allows or disallows users to do things that they want to do.
Facebook has been called a walled garden for long. And not without reason either. Apart from being a platform closed to the external web, it also had solid walls within the garden. I for one, found the place very nearly impossible to navigate in the beginning.
Twitter on the other hand, was a simple and solid idea. It did one thing, and did it well. There was little to learn and the experience was so smooth that people were at a loss for words when asked to explain it.
Twitter users, by and large, eagerly await news features (as do users of Friendfeed). Facebook however, with every redesign, ends up displeasing a great many of its users. Why do you think that is?
I think Facebook is growing faster than its users are. The Twitter crowd is the Twitter crowd, a breed that came into being because of Twitter and continues to thrive because of the sphere called microblogging that Twitter has spawned.
The Facebook junta, on the other hand, is the social networking crowd. They came from various Internet places and took to Facebook mostly because their friends were already on it. In other words, they lack the early-adopter style enthusiasm for change that marks the average Twitter user.
My personal sphere on Facebook comprises mostly of people who log in anywhere between once a day to once a week to check if anyone has uploaded photos. That’s about it.
The new Twitter-like design of Facebook scores because it alters the basic way Facebook communicates with its users. It encourages (some might say forces) users to stay logged in for longer periods of time and participate more actively in the many live and ongoing discussions that are sprouting all over their Facebook sphere.
I have seen my Facebook come to life in these past few days. I have seen scores of comments on simple status updates and shared links. This never happened earlier. The new-look Facebook has finally put Facebook in a position where it can allow its gazillion odd features to be of use. The thousands of photos, quizzes, book and movie review apps can now enable and enhance conversation instead of being pretty little ornaments.
Of course, the current look is not as streamlined as I would like it to be, but I do believe it is a huge step in the right direction.
Can’t disagree with a lot fo what you say, but primarily this seems to have lost some of the tweaking abilities I had in the previous FB. For example, earlier I could say “show me less quizzes”, or show me less about a particular user. I had more control over seeing that whic interested me, plus I could see all (and only) status updates if I so wished.
The previous version showed me what I wanted, and at leats in my little FB world, there was still considerable activty on updates, links and stuff people had done (in terms of comments on them that turned into conversations).
And yup, it needs a strong dose of streamlining.