The end of Facebook

It's rather easy to 'get' facebook, since it's pretty much a mish-mash of various communication technologies that have already proved themselves, including Twitter. I think new, non-techy visitors to Twitter are confused by what it does in some ways. Twitter's interface and presentation play a large role in that.

Twitter feels less personal than Facebook. The 73x73 image is tiny compared to Facebook's profile image, and there's little info on the page about real social connections. You are limited to one type of content, tiny text messages. It seems like a social site, but doesn't feel very connected. It seems to me Twitter is a mess of missed opportunities and muddled focus right now. They've tried to push it as a way to keep up with celebrities... Apple's iTunes 'ping' hasn't worked out with that whole Pro>Consumer set up.

I think Twitter's strength is in being a messaging system. People could use it to replace SMS, free, with a better interface - or does it have a better interface? Twitter's DM capabilities leave a bit to be desired. The web interface is rather feature-free, and aren't they cutting off API/OAuth access to DMs soon or something? Anyhow, look what the NYT did with Twitter's service recently - that is the sort of building on Twitter I see occurring, but I'm not even sure if Twitter themselves understand the potential for Twitter to become infrastructure, not just a way for people broadcast how much you hate traffic or like a sandwich.

1) It's ubiquitous so it's not like a statement that you like windows.

2) Main competitor is Apple/OSX which has always required a hardware upgrade/switch as the OS doesn't install on Win boxes.

3) PC manufacturers are operating on razor thin margins, so any joy you might get from the hardware is often minimal due to low quality parts... you have to be an enthusiast to have a decent experience or pay as much as the Mac users do.

Microsoft is a victim of it's own success... they forgot they actually have customers (not just consumers, businesses) and became arrogant.

I will sign up for most things that seem novel or interesting, but I won't fill out a random form with no hint of what I might get for doing so.

Go make a good damn startup yourself and stop procrastinating wasting your attention on overdramatized utterly irrelevant headlines.

The people really care about are on now for a few hours/minutes from 6 to 11:45 (if that) so my usage has cut down as well ... once in the morning, at lunch and at night.

I use twitter a lot more now as a result. I guess facebook has a new challenge, keeping older folks engaged and selling facebook to younger kids who are growing up on twitter instead of facebook as the dominant social media scene.