* I don’t disagree that Twitter and Facebook are different. In fact, I point out that Facebook can become a strong competitor NOT replacement.

* You point out that following someone on Twitter is more relaxed than friending someone on Facebook. One could argue all those people who are trying out twitter and quiting because the stream of thoughts and posts aren’t relevant to them — Facebook wouldn’t face the same degree of this problem. One of the many reasons why I think it would be powerful for Facebook to move forward with this.

* Facebook and Twitter should and can coexist, I’m not saying that it’s one or the other.

However, the difference is — Facebook could bake-in Twitter’s features into FB, thus making it an even more powerful social tool.

Twitter and Facebook are fundamentally different. Accepting someone as a friend on Facebook is a fairly big deal. Following someone on Twitter isn’t. Most people follow far more accounts on Twitter than they have friends on Facebook for that reason. There’s more to do on Facebook – it’s a heavyweight social app. Twitter is really just a stream of thoughts/posts.

Also, the default for Twitter is for everybody to see everybody else’s posts (if they want to). That functionality does not even exist in Facebook (for a good reason – it’s different, more intimate).

Twitter and Facebook fill different roles. If Facebook was to change to become Twitter, someone else would come and fill the space left by Facebook.

That’s not to say that a stream of status updates from Facebook won’t be popular – I believe it will be – but it won’t be Twitter.

Cheers,
@peter_may

2.) Yes, you are right that you can receive mobile updates already — right now, users are required to complete the complex task of editing your ‘mobile app’ settings. It’s someone complicated and most people don’t do it.

…however, if Facebook allowed you to indicate whom you receive mobile updates when you ADD a friend OR with a simple click like the ‘like’ or ‘comment’ button — that would completely change things.

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/04/facebook-text-updates/

I’m confused though…I think this feature is already available through Facebook’s Mobile app (you can select any number of friends you would like to be notified of status updates when they happen through the Facebook Mobile app).

I’m curious though…Is the use case of being notified EVERY time someone updates their status really all that valuable when you have 400 some people you’re following? Add to that a whole bunch of public profiles and it seems like a lot of noise.

I currently use the Facebook for BlackBerry app (and dabble with UberTwitter) and like that I can go check the feed of status (stati??) on Facebook or Twitter on demand and I’m only notified when things happen directly to me (personal/direct message, @reply, wall comment, photo comment, etc…)