Sounds familiar, right? "Facebook is about connecting people"
Massive sites should always be about people. I heard a great quote the other day: "facebook is where you go to connect with people you used to know, twitter is where you go to get to know people better"
Would you say this is a shift we're seeing across the entire tech industry?
In my opinion, throughout the 90's and early 00's technology was compared by a lengthy feature-set, but not necessarily by accessibility -- the human factor. The entire PC industry is losing ground to gaming consoles and Apple for a fundamental reason: it's not what the product can do as a whole, but what it can do for ME as efficient and perfectionate as possible. Technology has been over-complicated in many instances, the people & companies that can humanize it are going to win in the next era. my 2 cents.
PS. I have this taped to my monitor and live by it: "Brands can’t be commoditized, and features inevitably are." - Jason Calacanis. Twitter has become a lifestyle brand... it's unstoppable.
If Twitter lacks a business plan, then Briteny Spears is a virgin and she does not have a twitter account. (@britneyspears)
With the number of enterprises/companies/marketers/PR/CR/etc. using the service, if Twitter hasn't found a viable business model then it deserves to die. Maybe I'm oversimplifying the task here but from this armchair — it seems to be pretty simple, and a matter of flicking the switch when the time is right.
I suppose you could say the same thing about Facebook, but I think they got too caught up in global growth, relied heavily on ad revenue, overextended themselves, and now face the challenge of reaching profitability with a heavy burn (700+ employees) on their back.
The number of people who communicate using the service when its free != the utility of a commercial service that's charging you to help customers.
It never hurts to add "one more" free tool to your promotional toolset. That said, if its $.75/update for @britneyspears, it makes more sense for them to just post info on her facebook "fan" page. Or leak it to TMZ.
Again, Customer Service through twitter while free == awesome. Paying for it, when you're already paying for an outsourced Customer Service Center (like Comcast and Time Warner cable do) not so much benefit.
Yeah, this is obviously true for most websites. If a website is social than its about the people. Most sites these days are social. From basic forums to facebook and brightkite. Twitter doesn't deserve any hype and the concept is so simple. Facebook really should implement a more twitter-like service now before its too late, which it probably already is.
Massive sites should always be about people. I heard a great quote the other day: "facebook is where you go to connect with people you used to know, twitter is where you go to get to know people better"
It's true for me.