
Facebook Lite - Direct shot at twitter? (Full screenshot)  - jasonlbaptiste
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/jason-l-baptiste-random-thoughts/facebook-lite-direct-shot-twitter/
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zackham
Twitter's privacy settings involve a single checkbox at the bottom of the
settings form, and scary ALL CAPS is used to tell you you won't be on the
public timeline. Twitter indirectly discourages any information hiding.

Facebook puts privacy in your face from the start and you have such fine-
grained control – most Facebook users have some degree of information hiding
enabled.

I believe that culture of everything-is-public is what has fueled Twitter's
growth, and is exactly why Facebook cannot compete directly with Twitter.
Facebook is technically better in every way, but there is a cultural
difference in the two communities that allows them to serve separate purposes
even when Twitter's functionality is by all measures a subset of Facebook at
this point.

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dandelany
Being forced to share everything may result in a different culture, but it's
really just a less nuanced method of communication than what facebook allows.
Facebook lets you to communicate more precisely what you want to say and
exactly who you want to say it to. Quite simply, it's a more useful tool for
people, which is what technology is at its core.

Twitter will always be novel for introducing the short, sweet, live update to
the world, but without expanding its featureset (which Facebook is, almost
monthly), it will soon look like a toy.

~~~
madh
The private capability creates a lot of complexity for Facebook. While it's
true that more granular communication controls creates a more useful tool, it
does not mean the people can use the tool. For instance, right now I have
Friend Requests from relatives a generation older than me. As someone who
started using Facebook in college, I don't know whether to accept and start
creating limited profiles or to just ignore them. I'm not interested in
creating work for myself. Plus, what's the point of connecting if you're just
going to hide everything? This privacy granularity is a problem Facebook
really needs to figure out.

Being completely open from the get-go is part of the beauty of Twitter. They
should definitely add some more features, but the shear simplicity is quite
nice.

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dandelany
While I agree that their current privacy settings create complexity and
"work," the solution to this problem is to refine the interface so that making
privacy decisions is easier and more intuitive. This can maybe be done with
the help of AI/NLP/image recognition ("It looks like you're smoking pot in
this picture! Want Facebook to automatically make it private?"), or maybe they
just need to explore some new UI design options. Regardless, the solution is
not to get rid of the option altogether - the complexity exists because human
relationships are _complex_ and require complex systems to represent the
nuances of interpersonal communication.

It's like comparing the controls of a RC airplane to the cockpit of a 747: of
course a jet has a ridiculously complex control system, it's a complex machine
that's getting a lot of shit done at once. Any control you remove from a jet
plane would certainly make it more "user-friendly," but it also becomes a less
useful tool than it was before.

> what's the point of connecting if you're just going to hide everything?

Counterpoint: Where's the depth in your relationships if you cannot choose
what pieces of information you share with whom?

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madh
These are great points.

Facebook's (stated?) goal is to represent real world human relationships and
connections online in some way. That is complex and messy as humans are
complex and messy. Facebook should not get rid of its myriad of privacy
options as it's already built-in and necessary for way Facebook took off and
grew (the whole point of Facebook was that it was private for college kids).
It does certainly face very difficult UI and user training challenges that
need to be solved sooner rather than later, if it can be solved at all.

Twitter took another POV and just threw the complexity out. Definitely hippie
("can't we all just get along") and definitely simpler and easier from a UI
and back-end perspective. Not as useful, but you know what you're going to
get.

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zain
Someone snapped a screenshot: <http://i30.tinypic.com/2ni4mjt.jpg>

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jasonlbaptiste
good call. added that to the post. thank you.

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Keyframe
I always thought of twitter as facebook's natural extension - what happens
next in the clash of the titans? Will facebook play catchup on twitter
look/feel as a mode like this 'Lite' - and on the other hand will twitter
spread out to search chasing google while google chases facebook? Interesting
times.

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dannyr
I think you're right. My guess is Lite may just display Status updates and
condensed versions of photos and links - just like Twitter!

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swolchok
and, perhaps more pertinently, Friendfeed?

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blazamos
The Facebook Lite newsfeed screenshot:

[http://cache0.techcrunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/2-63...](http://cache0.techcrunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/2-630x597.jpg)

From:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/12/facebook-lite-in-
pictur...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/12/facebook-lite-in-pictures-so-
much-damn-faster-says-user/)

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jasonlbaptiste
Just updated the post. The message is gone. Jumped the gun?

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rjurney
No. You did right, hell of a scoop. They just pulled it because its not ready.

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jasonlbaptiste
Who says that there's no point to staying up until 3 am :-) ? At first I
thought it was just for a limited group of people (I've been on FB since mid
04 + active user). All of a sudden it went away.

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whatusername
It's 5:35pm for some of us. I got the message - but never actually got the
page to load. Thanks for the screenshot

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ojeysang
i like this...

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TweedHeads
Lets do the following exercise: on one side write down the people you follow
on facebook, on the other side those you do on twitter and compare them.

Facebook: mom, brothers and sisters, and cousins, auntie delores, the dog, the
hamster.

Twitter: peers, close friends.

No, they don't match, they don't compete.

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zzcoop
Actually, I get plenty of overlap on my FB and Twitter accounts.

