Facebook responds to Twitter

I’ve written several times about Facebook and Twitter , the two hottest social media sites on the planet (sorry MySpace and Friendster fans but these two sites are not in the same league in terms of industry chatter).

Although Facebook’s 175 million membership base dwarfs Twitter’s six million members, lately, it’s Twitter that’s got the most buzz in New Media circles.

These two are not direct competitors. Facebook is a social networking site whilst Twitter is a microblogging site. But there are areas of overlap. Both can be said to be a way for people to share their thoughts with others.

The approaches are different though. Facebook is complex and allows the user to share all kinds of things with members of the user’s network. Twitter, in contrast, is extremely simple and the feed is accessible to all and sundry (unless the user locks his feed and keeps it private).

Twitter is also fast, displaying the message immediately for others to view. Facebook status updates take up to 10 minutes before they appear in the newsfeed of people in your network.

Facebook has made some announcements however that will gear it up for battle with Twitter on several counts.

For one thing, Facebook status messages will no longer take minutes to appear in the user’s network’s newsfeed but immediately. Just like Twitter.

Secondly, Facebook will give its users flexibility in structuring their status messages. Currently, Facebook status messages always begin with the user’s name, forcing the user to make themselves the subject of the message. Twitter doesn’t do that and soon, neither will Facebook. The new design will no longer ask “What are you doing right now” but rather, “What’s on your mind?” (thus allowing the user to write about something other than themselves).

Thirdly, Facebook is tweaking its Facebook Pages (special accounts for celebrities and brands) so that Pages look and feel like regular Facebook homepages (the kind normal people have).

Facebook Pages until recently didn’t function as well as regular Facebook homepages. There was no status message function and it was strangely difficult to upload content to share with fans when compared to a regular Facebook homepage.

Up until now, Twitter has been the preferred site celebrities and brands use to connect with their fan base. With the latest upgrades, perhaps Facebook might start to catch up in that area.