Look. It’s no secret that web/new media trends come and go. Compared to old media, which digs in and stews for a century, if a website or web trend lives longer than 5 years, it’s considered ancient.
So I get it when everyone’s clamoring around Twitter like it’s going to replace everything else. Namely Facebook. Or when people (read: businesses) are hesitant to invest much time and effort into Facebook because “it’ll be gone next year anyway and we’ll be on to the next big thing.”
People, Twitter’s not a replacement for anything. It’s a tool that complements nearly everything else you do online. Even more than that, it’s a catalyst that has almost single-handedly — if not directly, by proxy — changed the way we view communication. The same way email changed the way we communicate in the 90′s, Twitter and apps like it (Wave, anyone?) are changing communication yet again. Twitter’s open nature simply makes it the best of the bunch so far.
So should you be on Twitter? Yes. Should you be concerned that it’s going to replace everything else you’re doing. No.
And about Facebook. It’s not going anywhere for a while, folks. Facebook is the closest thing we have to a complete online platform right now. What I mean by that is this: nearly everything you do online is being done on Facebook. Picture and video sharing. Link sharing. Messaging. Instant messaging. Business meetings. Event planning. All of it can and is being done on Facebook. And it’s being done very well.
See, MySpace rose to such iconic status so quickly because they were the first to do this. Social networking was an infant, and MySpace brought it up to puberty. But MySpace never grew up and away from that pimply faced horny teenager, and now it’s gone the way of the dodo. Facebook took everything that MySpace was doing, and did it better. Did it right. And people noticed (eventually), and transitioned over to the better, funner, easier to use, more open platform.
So why will Facebook be around for a while, you ask? Simple. There isn’t anyone doing it better waiting in the wings. If anyone will come close, it’ll be Orkut or Hi5, but only because they’re more popular outside of the States. But have you seen them? Yeah. Not better. Not even close. So it would take a major shift to get people to change again.
Social networking, at least what we call social networking, is here to stay for a long time. And Facebook is simply the best at it. Until that changes, Facebook’s not going anywhere.
That being said…don’t ever put all of your egg’s in one basket. Just had to say that. Cause you know I’ll be proven wrong by the next big thing in 2010.
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