Why Facebook will never be Twitter
On Thursday, the world's most popular social networking site rolled out some new features, the kind that inevitably lead bloggers to indulge in a new kind of parlor game: comparing Facebook to Twitter.
As Twitter users have been doing for years, Facebookers will soon be able to "tag" other users within their status updates by inserting an @ symbol before a friend's name. Facebook has also started testing a "lite" version of its site that removes some of the clutter and makes it all look a little simpler -- a little more like Twitter.
Don't get me wrong, I think these features will enhance Facebook and allow more people to use it in more ways. And its slow metamorphosis into a Twitter hybrid, which began in earnest when the site reoriented its design around the news feed in March, is both a validation of the success of the smaller microblogging service and a sign that competition in the social networking space can breed useful innovation.
But these sites are not on a collision course, as BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy suggested in March and as popular belief would have it. Facebook can never complete its District 9-like metamorphosis, and Twitter will always have a value all its own.
The reason is simple: privacy.
