Facebook used to undeniably be the coolest kid on the proverbial cyber-block. I distinctly recall sitting at the back of lecture halls at Western in 2006 and noticing that at least half of my classmates’ were busy on their laptops “creeping the ’book” (OK, admittedly I was among that half). But it seems pretty obvious that the coolest kid on the block has taken notice of the new kid on the block: Twitter. While Facebook still dwarfs Twitter in terms of number of users, Twitter is growing. And it’s growing really, really, really fast. According to Neilsen the Twittersphere grew by a mind blowing 1382% (yes, that’s 1382 – seriously, no typo!) versus 228% clocked by Facebook between February 2008 and February 2009. But I’m sure you knew that.
The really interesting…
Facebook used to undeniably be the coolest kid on the proverbial cyber-block. I distinctly recall sitting at the back of lecture halls at Western in 2006 and noticing that at least half of my classmates’ were busy on their laptops “creeping the ’book” (OK, admittedly I was among that half). But it seems pretty obvious that the coolest kid on the block has taken notice of the new kid on the block: Twitter. While Facebook still dwarfs Twitter in terms of number of users, Twitter is growing. And it’s growing really, really, really fast. According to Neilsen the Twittersphere grew by a mind blowing 1382% (yes, that’s 1382 – seriously, no typo!) versus 228% clocked by Facebook between February 2008 and February 2009. But I’m sure you knew that.
The really interesting thing I’ve noticed lately (as a user, not an expert) is that it seems like Goliath (Facebook) is taking notice of David. If the rumoured acquisition attempt by Facebook to buy out Twitter wasn’t obvious enough, surely the changes Facebook has been making are. First there was the Live Feed feature added which provided real time updates on what your friends were up to. And of course the “What are you doing right now?” feature is extremely similar to Twitter, pushing users to microblog.
Now Facebook is taking another big step in the race against Twitter: they have started testing a new search feature that lets users find the most recently posted updates and content in real time. The search feature, announced a few weeks ago, breaks down the results into two categories: most recent posts by your friends (which are displayed at the top), and most recent posts by all users who have made their profiles open to everyone (the picture is a summary of the screen capture posted on Mashable) . The tool is very similar to the Summize search service acquired by Twitter which allows Tweets to be searched as they’re posted. (If you’re a fan of Twitter trend tracking, check out Happn.in which lets see what’s trending in your city – very cool site.)
As marketers, the possibilities this new feature could open up are huge, particularly when you consider the massive number of people who are talking and sharing information on Facebook. You don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand that the impact that this will have on marketers; being able to monitor and listen to conversations that people are having about their brands, their competitors, or any other topic is invaluable information that could be leveraged in a multitude of ways. We’ve already seen how real time search has created a Twittersphere. Get ready for the…Facebook-sphere?
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