Facebook Mentions Won't Kill Twitter

I read a post last week, after Facebook announced the new mentions feature that intimated the new feature from Facebook would be severely detrimental to Twitter's growing user-base. In fact the post went so far as to say that if Facebook could develop a way to let people import their Twitter followers it would signal the end of Tweeting. I don't mean the 5 ways post that is buzzing on Twitter, I can't find the one I do mean, if anyone else read it please Tweet me so I can add the link (@WriteAProperty).

I do not believe this; Facebook will never beat Twitter, you know why? In a word: Simplicity. In another: uniqueness.

Twitter's unique selling point -- an essential part of business marketing -- the thing that sets it apart from its competitors is its simplicity. It's this simple: you answer the question what are you doing in 140 characters.

If people like your answers they follow you, which means that your answers -- your tweets -- are fed onto their homepage -- their twitter-stream --, and you follow those who you like which may or may not be those that follow you.

Following people, when reciprocated allows you to message each other privately, but this is also restricted to 140 characters. Public messages, aka mentions are simply your username preceded by the @ symbol and are sent through the Twitter-stream for all to see.

You have a short bio and a picture, and that is it. No apps, no detailed biography or profile to fill in, no photo albums, no fan-pages, no long messages, no windbag shares, just simple contrite answers back and forth.

Speaking of fan pages, Facebook knows it will never beat Twitter, that's why it tries so hard to be like it.

Fan pages were Facebook's first attempt at being like Twitter. You can have as many Twitter accounts as you want, but on Facebook it is against the rules to have more than one. Fan pages allow FB users to have multiple personas, 1 for every of their companies, ventures or passions, and people can become fans (follow) the personas.

Then came Facebook mentions. One of the best things about Twitter has always been the ease at which you can fire public messages back and forth across the Twitter stream, simply by putting the AT (@) symbol before the username. You also do this when you like a post and (retweet) re post it from your account. These mentions can easily be checked on Twitter because of the uncluttered and simple interface.

The Facebook mentions are going to be cool too, with the link-ups of who's meeting who and where showing on news feeds, and the ability to mention groups and events. But it still loses out to Twitter's simplicity as far as I'm concerned.

Another benefit Twitter has over Facebook is its search capabilities. Because of the massive user-base Twitter now has you can find practically anything within seconds. For instance I want to write about overseas property, if I type overseas property into the search everything Twitter users around the world have written about overseas property will come through my Twitter stream, giving me plenty of inspiration.

Then there is the way Twitter has embraced app developers, leading to a range of super convenient applications for Twitter users, including those to monitor your brand reputation.

I know Facebook has apps, but it is the external sites running off the Twitter API that make it interesting, like Twitter League, Tweetmeme, Twittercounter and Hootsuite. Argh, my mind went blank, please comment below or Tweet me with some apps that you like so I can add them here.

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