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But isn't it trivial for Facebook to offer Twitter's functionality (or do they already? Not an FB user ;)) and instantly have about x30 (AFAIK) larger userbase?
by nir 18y ago
But isn't it trivial for Facebook to offer Twitter's functionality (or do they already? Not an FB user ;)) and instantly have about x30 (AFAIK) larger userbase?
- mikeryan 18y agoThe new design is very twitter like. Your facebook homepage is essentially a "life feed" - kind of twitter on roids.
- unalone 18y agoThey don't offer exact functionality (they're not aimed at the same market), but they've got something close. Facebook already has ads, though, and they're evolving a business plan constantly. Twitter has nothing. So they have less experience with raising money and they've got more to lose.
- swombat 18y agoI disagree. Twitter is already testing its adverts, and masterfully so imho. I've clicked on those ads that they have now already. And since they were interesting things, I'm likely to keep an eye on that area for the foreseeable future, to see if anything else neat crops up. Seems like an excellent way to roll-out ads... first, make the users look at the area where you'll place the ads, by putting interesting stuff there, and then put paid ads there. So long as most ads remain relatively interesting/targeted, I'll keep looking. And probably clicking, too. Consider also that Twitter users are very used to clicking on external links, because we do it all the time for links tweeted by others. I am much less likely to click on an external link in FB than on Twitter.
- unalone 18y agoHuh! I didn't know Twitter was rolling out ads at all. Facebook has some excellent targeting. I've gone to a few Facebook links and if I wasn't broke I'd have bought some products, too. (Right now they insist on showing me the Twilight DVD, though, which irritates me.)
- swombat 18y agoClick here to see the ads: http://skitch.com/swombat/beiik/twitter-now-with-ads http://skitch.com/swombat/beiik/twitter-now-with-ads
- ryanwaggoner 18y agoThose are not ads. Those are just little promos for twitter features. By this logic, every link in the topnav and footer of twitter is an "ad". http://www.itworld.com/business/64445/twitter-house-ads-appear http://www.itworld.com/business/64445/twitter-house-ads-appe...
- swombat 18y agoAnd you really think they're not going to use that piece of prime real-estate for text advertising? Wake up and smell the coffee :-)
- ryanwaggoner 18y agoI don't doubt that they are, but these are not ads. HN has a lot of prime homepage real estate to the right, but if they put a link there to the submission form, it's hardly an ad :)
- swombat 18y agoYes, and so my point is, this is a masterful approach to pave the way for placing ads there. The standard way is to place ads and juggle them about until you've figured out where they attract the more clicks. Twitter's way appears to first manufacture a high-interest area (by putting cool twitter stuff there), then, once people are used to seeing nifty stuff there, start selling that nifty space to others.
- anatoli 18y agoActually, they are very real, internal ads. They rotate and point to different sections of the site, sometimes it's widgets, other times it's the search, etc.