Lacking a in-depth understanding of a companies, their product and their standing among competitors will only serve to lose you money. Let us take a extensive look at the social giants Twitter and Facebook.
For those of you who do not understand Twitters social function. In a basic form it shares what is happening in your world in right now… and right now. More importantly it connects people in real-time. Time stamping every action or emotion. One can think of Twitter like a news webpage, constantly updated and quickly forgotten. You read a Twitter stream once and forget about what happened in the next moment, no one spends long hours going back over what you said. Quite the contrary to the ideals of Facebook which I will go into momentarily, which focuses on a spectrum of time. You may have tweeted thousands of times, but unless you are a potential employer hunting for some naughty info on a perspective employee, the tweets of yesteryear are lost to the abyss of the internet.
Twitter also has this lovely feature where you can take a picture and share it with the world. For example :”I am currently partaking in the gluttony of America,” followed by a picture of a plate in which you will throw away half the portion promptly. Now for those of you who are lost when it comes to the internet, first off I do not know how you got here, secondly yes another company profiteers from the picture craze. Let me hint at it for you, Facebook owns them, they lost a majority of users by attempting to monetize their users pictures. Welcome to the world of Instagram! To be honest I cannot remember who made posting a picture of your dinner important first, Twitter or Instagram, it is much like the chicken or the egg. Who came first, no one really cares. What really matters is finding out which farmer makes more money, the chicken or the egg farmer, so you can invest in them netting a hefty profit.
Now why do you care about little ole Instagram?
Well being that Instagram is owned by big brother Facebook, Instagram plays a huge role in the Twitter Facebook rivalry. Now the most significant event that has happened lately in regards to this rivalry was the exclusion of Instagram pictures from the twitter feed (yes, Instagram had a little problem with their Terms and Conditions, but that kink will work itself out). At one time you could easily scroll through twitter and see lovely Instagram photos, those days are gone, resulting in links having to be clicked and time wasted to access Instagram photos. Essentially Twitter has attempted to muscle out Instagram from its space. Those fools over there failed to realize that they had inadvertently given their users an ultimatum. Telling users to choose us or them. Have you ever given an ultimatum to someone? A wife? A son or daughter? A significant other? Yeah you know how that ends, an ultimatum, for you psychologically declined, often results in a negative response. In simple terms, give someone an ultimatum and it never benefits you. Due to the lovely interface and lack of spam on users will choose Instagram time and time again.
Instagram is better?
Yeah I said it, for sharing those time stamped moments Instagram trumps Twitter(no real estate). Not just because a picture says a thousand words and Instagram lets you take better pictures. No, Instagram wins because not only is a picture time stamped, but a profile exists for the user. I can visit any user and scroll through all their photos effortlessly. This hugely contrasts the Twitter interface where one has to spend copious amounts of time and effort going back through a users tweets to get a decent grasp of a twitter profile. Instagram allows for the interface of a Facebook profile without the clutter. By having a unique interface that can be expanded on Instagram also opens itself up for giant improvements and easy monetization. In basic terms, Instagram offers a better format to interact socially. As we have learned from experience from the death of Myspace and the domination of Facebook, user experience intertwined with interface is everything.
Once you have happy users on the platform you can make money off of them, lots of money.
Instagram, which I consider Facebook’s bread and butter for the future, will play a vital role in crushing Twitter. Now you are wondering, well what about vine, what about twitter pictures? Those are all well and good. Yeah, that is the extent of it. Vine is mediocre. Do you know how many video sharing apps there are and how long they have been around? Countless apps and for quite some time. The issue being that the mass market does not find recording video as desirable or as easy as pictures. Facebook for example has countless photo albums, but go take a look and see how many videos your friends have videos. Even if they are amateur producers, they put their works on YouTube or Vimeo, not Facebook. They link to their works on Facebook, do not get me wrong, one must share their cinematic works, but a format already exists (linking them on Facebook and Twitter).
Pictures are appealing because they are quick and easy. You can pick and choose in seconds if a picture looks appealing or not. Getting the right shot in a video situation takes time and effort, which many are not willing to give. No one wants to catch up with a long-lost friend and say lets Vine this, they say lets capture this image so it can last a lifetime. A picture takes a moment, a video takes about 6 seconds. Twitter has attempted to eclipse Instagram, though when it comes to this arena, there is no outmaneuvering Do you think for a second the Instagram/Facebook team would not have utilized this if it had tested well or potentially been a traffic driver. Do not for a second think Zuck and his crew were surprised by this move. Though now they were forced to respond as depicted below. So the game continues…
It all comes back to time. Compare the time commitment of a photo verse video, and then try to convince me who in this fast pace tech world has the time to record a movie. Do you know why SnapChat has gripped the smart phone world? The masses, they love pictures. For those of you uninformed on the matter Google search SnapChat.
On the subject of time, my last and strongest argument for Facebook revolves around time. The time one has contributed to the world of Facebook, first off will never be reimbursed (sucker), and secondly makes the benefit of deleting ones Facebook profile is dramatically outweighed by the cost of losing ones profile. Facebook has become an online staple, so do not think it is going anywhere.
Now do not get me wrong, both Twitter and Facebook (yes Instagram too) have a place in the lives of many. Focusing on the picture war may see novel, but as the battleground of 2013 the sharing of pictures will define social media. Both Twitter and Facebook will continue to serve a purpose and make money off of our consumer driven society. Though Facebook (and Instagram) offer the user a better experience which will retain more users and allow for more profiteering in the future.
Photo 1 by Nouhailler
Photo 2 by clasesdeperiodismo
