Facebook Adds Twitter-like Options
7 Comments April 24, 2007 1411 Views
Are you guys familiar with Facebook? It’s one of the most popular social networks here in the US and has the most number of members among college focused sites with an estimated 19 million members. Even the infamous Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho had an account in Facebook.
However, Facebook is not that popular in the Asia or even in the Philippines so here’s a little background information.
Facebook is a social networking website. It was originally developed for college and university students but has since been made available to anyone with an email address. People may then select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region.
via Wikipedia
Recently, Facebook has added a few new options to the user status functionality that are very familiar to that of Twitter, an increasingly popular micro-blogging service.
Here’s what’s new:
- Your friends’ three most recent updates on the home page
- A brand new page to see all your friends’ updates at once
- An RSS feed to put your friends’ updates in your reader of choice
- The ability to subscribe to a friend’s updates via SMS
- The ability to easily update status from your phone by sending an SMS to Facebook starting with the “@” character
I’m not really familiar with Facebook since I don’t have an account there. But for someone who uses or is familiar with Twitter, these enhancements are really Twitter-like. Although there’s one feature that Twitter has and Facebook doesn’t. It’s the option to update a user’s status via an IM client. Will this become a trend among social networks? Can we expect to see Myspace and Friendster adding these options in the near future? I guess, we’ll just have to wait and see.
(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Hello and welcome to JaypeeOnline! My name is Jaypee Habaradas and I'm the author of this blog that talks about the latest blogging news, WordPress theme and plugin reviews, technology, gadgets and tips & tricks.
Hmmm….must have missed that new option during my last login just minutes ago. Will have to look at it when I go back. When would that be, I don’t know.
BTW, nice theme dude, a little too dark for my eyes but it’s cool.
@jhay - So you have an account in Facebook? Maybe I should try it too, just for the fun of it. Hehe
Thanks! Yeah, it is a bit dark but I’m just glad that I’ve found a nice new theme to replace the old one.
Heard about it somewhere, but nah it’s just another Friendster, Myspace… etc.
New layout here, looks clean but IMO, I prefer the previous, it has more “FACE”.
I thought about signing up for Facebook a while ago, but ever since I saw this video about how Facebook might violate your privacy rights and sell your info: http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/
I’m not sure about the accuracy of facts in the video, but it certainly made me think twice…
… and I started reading about these issues on other sites, I was kind of iffy about it. I get iffy about signing up for online things. On the other hand, one does have control over what one puts online… so you only have yourself to blame if you put up stuff that you’ll regret later on. So, maybe I’ll sign up for Facebook… because it looks really nifty.
@K - I was just gonna try it for the heck of it and see the Twitter-like options.
There, I reverted to the old layout and modified it into 3 columns.
@fruityoaty - That’s a very interesting video, good thing you mentioned about it. If that’s the case I guess I won’t sign-up with Facebook anymore. Hehe
I wonder if the same thing happens with the data that other social networks gather. I think I should read the TOA of Friendster & Myspace.
While I can appreciate the technology behind all of this, I am still kinda creeped out. And I actually use facebook…
@J David - Creeped out about the privacy issue?