If Facebook were a country, its 900 million members would make it the third largest in the world. It would far surpass any government past or present in how personally it records the lives of its citizens. Marital status, family pictures and records of location all stream into the company’s servers each and every day.
With its collection of the largest data set ever assembled on social behavior, Facebook has undoubtedly embedded itself into modern life. In fact, Facebook has become so popular it is beginning to attain the same reputation for technical innovation enjoyed by Internet pioneers such as Google; a feat that other social media sites, such as Twitter, have yet to accomplish.
Think of it this way, if the World Wide Web were a high school, Facebook would be the nerdy kid with glasses who didn’t necessarily excel socially in high school, but went on to invent something indispensable, becoming a successful millionaire. Twitter would be the annoying kid who started a high school club with such social importance that people had to join whether they wanted to or not. In the end Facebook pulls and Twitter fades into the background forced to try to make a comeback on reality TV shows the rest of its existence.
While Twitter may be on the rise, Facebook holds on to its lead as it has almost triple the users. Now one could argue that Twitter is continually growing and it could eventually surpass Facebook, but given its ingenuity, this won’t happen anytime soon.
The biggest appeal of Facebook is it’s easy to grasp. My 67- year- old grandmother updates her status in one day more than some of my high school friends do in a week. After liking each and every one of my pictures I post on the site, she raves about how wonderful it is to be able to keep in touch so easily. Facebook feels familiar and cozy, whereas Twitter isn’t nearly as easy to wrap your arms around.
In addition, Facebook seems to be all-encompassing. Its addicts prefer logging on to the site versus having to log into Yahoo Messenger, Gmail, Hotmail, Flickr, YouTube and even Twitter. Facebook gives them a single alternative to all of these applications to manage their online social interaction needs. This explains the explosive growth Facebook continues to experience and why the company reportedly invested $200 million in data center upgrades last year to keep up with demand.
In the end, both Twitter and Facebook are simply communication tools; both will continue to evolve as they generate new users each and every day, but the difference is that Facebook will grow to gain as much hype has Google. Twitter will eventually fade into the rear view mirror of social evolution. #sorrynotsorry.