One of the sharpest sociological observers of social media on the block, danah boyd, has written a cracker of a post at apophenia pointing out that people actually tend to use Facebook status updates and Twitter for different purposes, and that the social context of each is quite distinct. It’s refreshing to see this kind of analysis, when many so-called ’social media experts’ are just obsessed with whether x is the new y. There’s space for all sorts of things in a healthy digital culture ecology.
3 Responses to “Facebook vs Twitter? It’s the wrong question”
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Some useful comments in there as well. My limited personal experience inclines me to agree with her distinction between Facebook and Twitter updates and also my instinctive reaction to the 2 applications is Facebook generally seems to be more immersive whereas Twitter seems much more like a broadcast medium. Obviously people use them both in different ways but Facebook does seem to offer more ways to explore ideas socially (or consume your time) whereas Twitter might be a higher intensity thing that suits a different mentality.
Interesting topic for a blog
Must try Twitter some time. And, this post reminds me to check out my Facebook Page.
For me the distinction is fairly simple: FB is personal (communicating with people I already know), TW is professional (engaging in lightweight and relatively non-hierarchical interactions with people of professional expertise, insight and interest to me). While there’s some occasional overlap between the two, that’s kinda how it goes, for all the good reasons in the linked article. 6 months ago I was a twitter sneerer, now I find that its a very valuable 15-20 minutes a day.