Comment by mechanical_fish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mechanical_fish | Hacker News Reader

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mechanical_fish

My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter.

IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter.

Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user.

The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms.

It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?

I used the college kids example not as a "twitter is meant for younger people" example. It's the fact that college campuses are usually good predictors of technologies and apps that are gaining mainstream popularity. Ironically Facebook is growing heavily in the older segment, which is making the "Facebook stealing twitters thunder" even more important.

Another overlooked demographic of the twitter userbase is the urban segment. A ton of rappers use the service, hence bringing more fans. Go look at most of the hashtag trends on search.twitter ie- #whyursingle. Almost all of the responses are from an urban/black audience. I think there's some X Factor there, as it could turn twitter into something more mainstream. I don't know.

I prefer the simplicity of Twitter: I don't want pictures, I don't want video, I just want the info. (The only reason I'm on Facebook is because I am a college student and my peers are all on there.) I also feel that Twitter better facilitates useful information exchanges which is harder with the clutter of Facebook.

As far as the urban audience, I think one of things that makes Twitter a little closer to MySpace is that ability to customize your background. I think that might be a part of it, but certainly not all of it.

Rapper mentions and urban demographics didn't save the T-Mobile Sidekick. I don't think it's a meaningful indicator of larger things.

it certainly helped it spread and gain adoption.

To a point. It never hit the mainstream in a big way.

i wondered yesterday what new earthquake had brought down twitter, it turned out just being america waking up and twittering too many #ripbig

I've made some useful/interesting local connections and a few friends on Twitter. I think it can be useful for niche interests, be it hacking, food or music. The problem is that users need to be patient and discerning in developing a good list to follow. I've found much more value in finding new contacts on Twitter and more in maintaining distant relationships on Facebook.

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