It was not too long ago that FaceBook overtook MySpace as the most popular and used social networking website. 
FaceBook was a breath of fresh air to the social networking scene and stole the hearts of college students who in turn passed it on. FaceBook has also enjoyed an almost complete measure of success in the age 30+ group of social networkers – a virtually non-existent group of users on MySpace.
Twitter enjoyed moderate success and a growing momentum for the past several months. In the past two weeks Twitter has completely exploded thanks to a couple of celebrities and a national news network. Twitter’s user group is similar to that of FaceBook as they enjoy mostly 25+ year old users with those under 20 few and far between. Twitter was the first popular micro-blogging/life stream option available on the internet. Since their release, a few imitators and improvators (those who claim innovation on the basis of supposed improvements to an existing service) have attempted to challenge Twitter with a service of their own – think Laconi.ca, Plurk, Jaiku, etc.
So, how was FaceBook able to steal MySpace’s spotlight and why is Twitter the go-t0 status service? And why will they both stay on top of their respective fields? One word – Simplicity.
While MySpace was cool because they were first to the game and they offered complete customization (options). Then FaceBook came along. Profile formats are uniform, and the initial adopters say – boring! But then people start actually using FaceBook and this is what they find…
- FaceBook is AJAXed to the max = one click commenting – SIMPLE!. MySpace STILL requires comments to be confirmed before posting = two click commenting.
- FaceBook offers seamless integration with apps. = fun and SIMPLE! MySpace apps are a bit ganky and their integration seems to be a bit of an afterthought.
- FaceBook keeps it SIMPLE with “status” bar or notes for longer thoughts. MySpace offers a status-bar, bulletins, and a blog all to say the same things.
It is safe to say that FaceBook is enjoying such success because the simplification that they brought to the social networking scene. The Twitter story us a bit different. Twitter is generally heralded as the first to the micro-blogging/lifestream scene. In an effort to upstage the twitter, the competition came out the same basic service but more features like groups, video, and picture sharing capabilities. Plurk even allows its members to customize the complete look and feel of their page with HTML. Here is the breakdown:
- Twitter=140 characters of text or links. The others = some can do pics and vids depending on storage purchased.
- Twitter=choice of 12 backgrounds or your custom picture file background. The others = no options or full custom HTML options.
- Twitter=follow who you want – people to people. The others = various attempted improvements like groups, channels, etc.
So far, Twitter is blowing the doors off of the competition. You could argue that this is because they came to the game first, and that is true. But in the case of both FaceBook and Twitter, another large factor of their success has been the simpicity within their user interfaces. More options and features create chaos. Simplicity sells.
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