When I joined twitter over a year ago it was with a clear objective: ability to update my facebook status much more easily.
That was then. Now is now.
As of this weekend, I’ve disabled the twitter application in facebook. A very smart lady told me once she’s keeping twitter and facebook separate, and I didn’t understand a) why and b) how. After a year on twitter and 2 years on facebook, with some 740 followers and 840 friends, respectively, I have the answers to both questions.
Why?
Twitter is not facebook. Facebook is a social site, for making friends, groups, events, photos, apps, pokes, etc, whilst twitter is a micro-blogging service with quicker communication. People often see twitter as a human-GPS-locater, but the truth is far from it. Yes, some do use twitter for geo-location, some are even doing it in a smart way. I use twitter to interact with interesting people and read/see/share pages I didn’t know before. More than updating your status, twitter is about conversation, and keeping the wheel spinning. To that extent, Topify does an excellent work by analyzing a person’s ‘twitter credibility’, making it easier for me to decide ‘follow or not follow’.
How?
Separation of knowledge. Not all the stuff I write on twitter are ‘facebook-material’. Sometimes I want to keep a facebook status but still update twitter. In order to do so, I’ll be using 2 main applications – twibble and tweetdeck. The first is for my Nokia N95 and the second is for the laptop. Both apps are sporting new versions, and Tweetdeck also gives you the option to update facebook (default is no).
So, long story short:
If you want to stay current of everything I do, start following me. I’m still gonna update facebook using tweetdeck but the frequency will probably decrease a bit.
צודק לגמרי, ובכלל שפת הטוויטר בתוך פייסבוק לא מתאימה כל כך, לא תמיד אנשים שחברים שלךנו בפייסבוק מבינים מה זה @… או ריטוויט
וכו וכו
ביטאת במדויק את מה שאני חושב
אחלה פוסט
I hear ya. But what do ya think of selective FB updates via twitter ? It’s a FB app, basically u just need to add #fb at the end of a Twitter update to have it update FB as well.
Well, I am your friend on FB and follow you on Twitter, so it won’t really cause and issue for me, but with the new “streaming” aspect of FB, is the line between status update vs. microblogger still as sharp?
Besides, having one piped to the other is funny sometimes. My dad is on FB and the other day I had tweeted some arcane mix of coding references and hashtags, meant mostly as an inside joke for other devs. My dad (who only vaguely understands what I do) sees that as my status and says “Kids say the darndest things”. I was giggling every time I saw it :p
Shimon,
I decided it’s time to make that separation when I noticed many of the tweets I wrote had nothing to do with facebook. And now that twitter gained some popularity, no point in keeping the integration going.
Joel, how are you?
I decided that tweetdeck will be my facebook update tool, or m.facebook.com on my N95. In any case, most of the things I do at facebook are not updates but sharing posted items: articles, events, photos and videos – and I need my laptop to do so. And thanks for the #fb tip – wasn’t aware of it.. Does it work only at twitter.com or anywhere (like twibble)?
thePuck, pleasure to see you here too.. 😉
As I said to Joel and Shimon, I use fb more for sharing posted items than updating status. Easier with twitter and creates a conversation. So making the 2 separate was an easy decision.
And from your father story, I think you see my logic, although my mom/dad are not on fb. Yet.
Great post, Dvir!
I couldn’t agree more, when I got more into Twitter I removed the Twitter Application from Facebook. Not only it’s not always relevant or clear for my FB friends, but also when you’re live Twitting from an event it might bother your FB buddies.
If you wanna share the same update on both Twitter and FB and you don’t use TweetDeck, try selective Twitter application. (http://snipurl.com/hcf57)
right on, and i see it this way:
the statues that one publishes have to do with the community that follows these statues lines, happens to be my twitter community and my FB community are different,
so there’s no point for me to mix my publishing amongst them.