Facebook gunning for Twitter

Facebook out-Twitters on the iPhone

(Credit: Facebook on the iPhone)

Will the new Facebook iPhone application be the death of Twitter?

If Facebook offers a "communication utility" consistently, as part of their platform, it has way more users than Twitter and should be able to push it aside pretty quickly.

Twitter is interesting and sorta fun but it's annoying that I can't interact with it the way I want to--at least not consistently. Any limitation or change that forces people to change their behavior is a negative. SMS is bit annoying too in that you can't mass communicate, at least not for free.

As VentureBeat notes:
The "for free" part isn't so much a dig at Twitter, which also lets you message for free, but a dig at simple text messaging services (also known as SMS), that cost money to use.

Via VentureBeat

[jnassi]

I'm waiting until this weekend to upgrade my iPhone, so haven't been able to try the new iPhone Apps... but, with regards to Facebook-on-iPhone versus Twitter, I think the place where Twitter wins in this respect is the persistence of updates.

I use Facebook, and I use Twitter. And I monitor my friends' updates on both using a variety of tools. With Twitter, I get each and every update logged, so I don't have to catch the update in real time. With Facebook, my RSS feed may or may not catch every status update from every person; there's a time limit in there somewhere, and if someone updates their status more than once every X amount of time, you'll only see the most recent update.

That's pretty much the only plus for Twitter in this debate.

[dabrace1984]

I think the problem that I have with understanding the functionality of Twitter is why do we have to know EVERY status update for a friend. In Today's always tethered world, why do have have to make a status update when we are walking into a coffee shop, then getting into our car and then we are walking from our to our front door, and finally sitting down at our computer. Call me crazy, but I find it ridiculous.

[Matt Asay]

Wow. One lame application gunning for an even worse application. It's like the battle for Supreme Ruler of Loserdom.

[csven]

That people believe Twitter is *only* used to send out "EVERY status update for a friend" is both amusing and alarming. It's like saying telephones are only used to call the spouse from the grocery store; or only used for 911; or only used for business conference calls; or only used ...

When did so many people have their imaginations removed?