It’s a little embarrassing but it’s true. When we think about Twitter and Facebook we go all dreamy-eyed. Maybe its the way the social networks just let us be ourselves. The way they accept us unconditionally, and really, really listen. Or, maybe its because even when we are unplugged we can still bask in the warm embrace of our followers and friends. We feel safe knowing that no matter how things may go – there are two strong networks who will help soothe our pain and celebrate our joy. All the recent blog posts in the social media playground about which network has more users or which dominates real time search doesn’t phase us one bit. We know the truth! We know that no matter how much twitter and facebook compete for our affections there are many others out there, just like us, who are in a long-term, committed relationship with both. As far as we are concerned we’ll all be better off if they just admit it: they really would be great together!
No we don’t think they should merge, but we’d be absolutely ecstatic if they’d share better! As much as we love both networks we are also frustrated to tears sometimes. Updating both individually can really be time consuming. Why should it be? It’s our data – our status updates…why shouldn’t we be able to syndicate them to both networks if we want?
The social media playground is a very large space and there is more than enough room, and users, to keep both twitter’s and facebook’s investors happy for a long, long time. While there is clearly a strong desire among their shared users to update both networks simultaneously at least one of the players doesn’t seem to want to provide what we want. At least not yet.
Sure, there are some clunky facebook apps that allow us to share our twitter updates on facebook – but it is just a one way street. If there is anything we’ve learned about the social media it is that we’ll have far more success if everyone plays nice and follows some elementary rules of etiquette. So why can’t these two big guys do that? Is it so wrong of us to want to share our status updates where and when we want?
So it seemed like good news when we learned that facebook opened up to allow owners of fan pages to syndicate their updates to twitter. But, we have to wonder why they stopped there and are still holding our individual data hostage! In his post on TechCrunch Jason Kincaid alluded to some of the possible reasons. Being the well informed guy that he is, Jason just might be right, but that doesn’t stop us from being underwhelmed by facebook’s gift to brands and celebrities who make up just a fraction of their user base while leaving the rest of us in status update silos.
Sorry if it sounds like we are down on facebook, more than anything we are disappointed, a little hurt, and tired of being ignored. We see only positive outcomes of an arrangement that would allow status updates, users and the associated hordes of traffic to freely travel both networks in real time. We think both twitter and facebook will ultimately benefit by coming together and sharing. A big hug probably wouldn’t hurt either. But then, we are just enthusiastic twitterfools. What do you think?
