Facebook has tonight made a number of changes to their platform, the most exciting of which is the making public of status updates. This update therefore means users do not need to be logged in to view user statuses (assuming the user has decided to make their updates public).
The blog post announced:
…your applications can now directly access all of a user’s status, links, and notes via new methods and FQL calls. Your application will have access to any status, notes, or links from the active user or their friends that are currently visible to the active user.
In addition, Facebook are opening up new API’s to allow applications to post links, create notes and/or upload videos. In no time, expect to see a rush of Twitter like tools and applications, likely more feature rich, to launch catering specifically to this update.
Personally I do not believe this will be the death of Twitter but it may mean a halt to Twitter’s dreams of becoming the “mainstream” tool we’ve all begun to expect.
What do you think?
via AllFacebook
I say Twitter continues to grow at this current pace,
and eventually eclipses what we consider ‘mainstream Facebook’
Thanks,
@Ed
Interesting point Chris, very true.
Agree, two different entities. Facebook will never replace Twitter.
maybe not but I like twitter better.
The problem with this is that users are still stuck with the name being prepended on Facebook, and I assume on their status messages when pulled through the API. Twitter doesn’t have this particular albatross around its neck.
While there are certainly quite a few people who don’t particularly care about this (and have scads of status messages which make little grammatical sense) some of us will continue with Twitter because we can say what we want, without nonsense being tacked on by Facebook.
Facebook: one revealed identity.
Twitter: multiple fantasy identities.
I don’t think they’re going to be stepping on each other’s toes.
And twitter will never replace facebook. This is good news, but I don’t think it’s game-changing.
Both personal and friends status have always been available as RSS feeds on FB and therefore it was already possible to read friends statuses from any feed reader, or through a private room on FriendFeed; so where’s the change?
FaceBook and Twitter are very different. I think this news will put a dent in Twitter’s mainstream aspirations, but ultimately FaceBook statuses will not appeal to the whole Twitter audience. Different platforms, overlapping but different audiences and different approaches. Twitter will still thrive.
The death of twitter will be same source as the death of hotmail over a decade ago for me. More and more people sending junk mail. Twitter has more and more users but they’re not active so the quality of discourse there is degrading.
What is positive though is seeing how Facebook will help the constant flow of status updates become an integral part of people’s lives, and not just geeks. I really want something like twitter to be part of more of my real physical world friends, not the geekiest among them.
In a sense I want twitter to dissipate.
Interesting development ,but i’m wondering if people really want absolutely everyone on the web to know their status?
It opens the door for a wide range of abuse ,including giving hackers too much free access to these web sites .I think the problem for most people has been keeping people out ,not letting people in .That’s why there are ‘block user” settings on social networking sites .You can’t block someone who’s not a user .
I don’t think this development is about Facebook vs. Twitter. A Facebook RSS status is useful for integrating into Friendfeed for e.g., or other all-in-one social footprint statuses.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. all become feedsources into the larger social footprint, right?
Twitter = make new friends
Facebook = connect with old friends and friends you’ve made on Twitter
As long as this stays true, one would never overcome the other.
We are in SERIOUS trouble with this administration / Homeland security. Janet Napolitano says “the system worked” IT DID??? HOW??? She was speaking about the Terrorist that got aboard a plane with explosives. This person (Janet Napolitano) has no Idea how to protect this country. We have no clue how much of our terrorist security network was removed by executive order when OB took office. If the system worked he never would have gained entry to the security team on the floor much less the plane. We may have found this guy if we were still water boarding the scum that our Government is now trying to protect and read them there rights. Now everyone that has to fly is going to have to suffer due to the lazy people we employ to protect us and who are now trying to cover their ass (CYA) because they screwed up they meaning from the Homeland security and the entire security network President Bush had in place that OB removed by Executive Order. The news played video of security personnel from Homeland security sleeping at their posts at airports and bridges. A lot of people would take that job; people who are hungry for work right now. On the Tax issues if you haven’t heard they put a hidden lets screw America tax a payroll tax of 62% in for OB to sign and he will sign it without any thought about hurting any of the American tax payers financially. I feel so sorry for some that will be totally financially devastated. They will be living in tents like some are already doing if you don’t believe it drive around look for yourself. If you have a few bucks extra buy some dry goods and give it to them we need to look out for the people here in the USA not in Brazil or India, Africa or many other countries sure they could use it to but it’s time to take care of #1. Right now the other countries don’t exist in my book after all we don’t exist to them just our wallet. Shut down boarder’s lower taxes and give huge tax credits to small business and we will see our country rise. If we continue on the path we are on I fear we will go down even more. They have to stop spending our money it’s our money not there’s. They are out of touch with us it’s time for them to go. the Government needs to do what we ask or face the vote. Any of you that want to go to Canada’s ways why change it here? Get out! Move there so you don’t need to be so unhappy here. Makes no sense to me they already have what they want there but we can’t have what we want here. As Earl Pitts would say “WAKE UP AMERICA”
First, you shouldn’t need to be friends with the people to read their status updates…which you need to be now.
Secondly essentially, the excitement lies in the fact that you will be able to share video, images, links with ease via various online/offline applications – creating more of a public news feed setup for both individuals and companies.
In addition, the api allows for all the twitter mashups we have grown to love with twitter…So visually being able to see how many times a particular link has been shared, which videos are popular (within your community) and so on…
You know, now that you mention it – it’s almost more of an attack on friendfeed..