Facebook Meltdown: Is Twitter Next?
Will the weekend of February 22, 2008, mark the beginnning of the end of the Twitter (human) love affair?
Why does Facebook make young men swoon? I headlined way back in September 2007, critiquing near universal, unconditional, media and Internet celebrity fawning over an adolescent styled free Web service built for gossipy teens. My lone, grounded voice was in stark contrast to the loud Web chorus of unbridled adulation overflowing for a 23 year-old coder credited for single-handedly changing the world’s communications, although facing accusations of unseemly “inspiration” from the work of others.
Since the very day Mark Zuckerberg graced the world with “F8,” I have been underscoring the unavoidable business model risks of a third-party business based off of Zuckerberg’s platform and have been warning prospective Facebook users that they use the free to consumer service at their own privacy and data security risks. Despite conventional blogosphere wisdom of a supposed inexorable Facebook “killer” strategy, I have also consistenly debunked consistently over rosy projections of a Facebook takeover of the Web and its advertising.
Nevertheless, the Web’s infatuation with the purported Web wunderkid could not be contained, until now.
Beacon was NOT a Facebook surprise and neither is Mark Zuckerberg’s propensity to hold on to his Facebookers’ data for dear life. The Facebook traffic march is not an immutable, pre-ordained parade to inevitable Web domination, despite the exhortations of Facebook and its ardent fans.
Have the real-world challenges of Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual playground finally poked the over-inflated Facebook bubble? After all, Facebook deemed it necessary to defend itself this past weekend against blogosphere cries of “fatigue” over a purportedly soon to be “doomed” Facebook!
A geek love affair is going strong though, for Twitter, the current fashionable object of early adopter adoration. Amidst the Facebook thrashing this weekend, we were reminded of how cool it is to be “hooked on Twitter.”
Twitter infatuation is in full bloom: “Nearly a million users and no spam or trolls,” Russell Beatie gushes:
I don’t have to worry about getting any suggestions that my penis size is too small (I make a point not to follow ex-wives/girlfriends), get any anonymous stock tips, nor anyone telling me that now is the time to refinance my home. Nor do I have to suffer fools or jerks for more than the time it takes me to click the “Remove” button on their home page.
Beattie may not be worried of “exposure” on Twitter, but his commenters are not so sanguine.
FEEDUS: There are plenty of trolls but not much spam. Trolls in twitter are the people who try to follow like 3000 people. They are also the folks who ‘track’ certain words and then @ with related messages. There’s little spam because you can only send one @ message at a time.
LINKERJPATRICK: I don’t know, I have had people add me to their “friends” list but for all practical purposes they are not people as much as they are “marketing” campaigns. Also I have had to stop following people because some of their posts have been very vulgar or used language I would want someone visiting my Twitter page to see in my list of followers.
GILEST: Twitter spammers only trouble the people who make the decision to follow them. That doesn’t stop the spammers from following as many people as they can, and those people getting the resulting one-off “So-and-so is now folllowing you on Twitter!” email alerts. It’s not annoying (yet), but I fear it will expand very quickly. Both those examples I gave cropped up in my inbox within the last fortnight or so, I think there will be more to come yet.
Fears of man eating plants may also be cropping up, thanks to Twitter! After all, if the geek world is going gaga now for “how to” make plants Twitter their hunger to their “owners,” a “Little Shop Of (Twitter) Horrors” may not be far away!
“Botanicalls” is clear (via Twitter): “THE PLANTS HAVE YOUR NUMBER!”:
Botanicalls opens a new channel of communication between plants and humans, in an effort to promote successful inter-species understanding.
Twitter love really is blooming, for now.
PLUS: Is Union Square Ventures Changing Exit Strategies? and MySpace On Google: Sorry, ‘NO Truth’ To $900 Million Rumors and Microsoft Steals VideoEgg’s Thunder? Google Ultimate Loser