My initial response to that question is "no." However, If I were taking bets i'd say that Twitter is more at risk than Facebook. I find that people I know that LOVE Twitter love it mostly because they don't like Facebook. Maybe it's the whole "friend" concept vs. "followers". Maybe it's because Twitter is short, sweet and too the point at 140 characters. I'm not sure what the real attraction is of Twitter over Facebook for those users that prefer it, but the one thing I can say is that Google definitely took a hard look at both services and decided to integrate the best of each into their own Google+ network.
Circles instead of Friends
Like Twitter, you don't have to be someone's "friend" to follow them. You can just add them to one of your Circles and you'll see their public updates. However, like Facebook's "lists" (my favorite Facebook feature) the whole Circle concept makes it easy to control what you share and with whom. You can target both status updates and photo albums to specific Circles of users that you create.
Speaking of photos
I would dare say this is probably one of the most used features of Facebook. Facebook users post millions of photos each week! I think it's the photos aspect that makes a Facebook user prefer Facebook over Twitter. While you can share links to photos on Twitter, it's just not the same.
Google+ Hangouts are cool too
Google+ Hangouts is a cool little feature that lets you set up a LIVE video conference chat with up to 10 people. I gave this feature a whirl while I was watching my new studio being painted. Yes, I invited people to watch paint dry 🙂 OK, I was bored and didn't want to be bored alone. I fired it up. Positioned a spare laptop upstairs and we all sat around chatting about photography, Adobe questions, and of course painting. It worked extremely well. The only downside was the limit of 10 people. But hey, it was free!
Who will win?
I think it's way way way too early to say that Twitter or Facebook is going to die because of Google+. First of all Google+ isn't open to the general public just yet. Most "everyday" people I talk to have never even heard of Google+. This is why I think Google+ will have a hard time overtaking Facebook anytime soon. In order to beat Facebook they'd not only have to do just about everything Facebook does and in most cases better, there would have to be a groundswell movement of hundreds of thousands of users away from Facebook and I just don't see that happening. The reason is, most Facebook users I know (everyday folk) like Facebook. They don't see anything (much) wrong with it. They use it everyday to keep in touch with friends/family and for the most part they are happy with the way it works.
Yes it could happen. Look at MySpace. MySpace was king/queen, but you never hear anyone talk about it anymore. Facebook killed it. So yes it could happen, but you'd have to look at the reasons why MySpace has almost disappeared. It had no class! MySpace was all about letting you create and unfortunately "customize" your presence. This lead to many non-web designers creating really crappy looking MySpace pages. These pages were a pain to read and for some reason everyone thought that you wanted to hear their favorite music the minute you entered their page. I absolutely hated using MySpace and the only reason I was on it was to see the pages of people that I was communicating with. I spent as little time on it as possible. I think this is why it was easy to beat MySpace with something "better" or at least more consistent. I don't miss MySpace one bit. It won't be so easy with Twitter and Facebook.
This begs the question, is there room or desire for all three? I certainly don't need something else to do. Having a Google+ presence means that I now have one more thing to feed and maintain. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
I'm inviting 150 of my fans to join Google+
Like I said above, Google+ isn't available to the general public just yet. However, if you're wanting to get in just click this link and be sure to add me to your Circles! Thanks!
Which one do you prefer?
Thanks for this comparison. I love FB! Mostly for keeping track of family, former students and some business folks, and to post links of personal and professional interest. Only this week, I finally set-up Twitter, not having appreciated its appeal. Have to say I was hooked immediately because of the instant access to breaking news and the ability to respond. Easy to see why reporters all use it. But Google? I’ve used Docs and Blogs and Email and Chat, chiefly in my classroom. But when I’m on my own, FB is the site I check, and I don’t want to start another list to manage. Agree with you regarding MySpace–haven’t looked at it once since I set it up years ago. Drag! Thanks. @DianaLFriedline on Twitter
Thanks for the invite, Terry. Facebook is getting old for me. A lot of the time it is confusing, support is about nil, too cluttered. Seems more and more, I am just wasting time there. Google+ will be a refreshing change. I use Flickr but have always wanted to compare the two… now, I can!
I like G+. But I don’t use it really as a social network but more like a live news feed. I love the “follow” aspect with the circles and there is a huuuuuuge photographer network on there. Some great guys sharing great content. So I hop on Facebook for my friends / family / coworkers. But I hop on G+ more to be inspired and see some new work by new and established photographers and even post and join in discussions. I think G+ may end up being used more for that than something like Facebook which people now use as the prime example of a “social network”. It’ll be interesting to see. And I didn’t know you were on G+. Gotta go “follow” you too! :0
I find myself definitely moving away from Twitter to Google+, primarily because I can have actual conversations instead of one sentence dialogs. 140 characters works for some things but not conversations. It also seems like Twitter is becoming more and more about advertising than being social. I keep FB for personal stuff, but like you said most of my FB friends don’t know about Google+ (and aren’t likely to switch).
I love your article Terry. Just you left me thinking one thing. It would be one more thing to feed, that’s damn right 😀 hahahaha
Just started Google+ today. Thank you for the invite. So far I love it. I love the idea of circles.
Terry,
I believe there is a place for each of these services. All of my friends /acquaintances use each service differently because each service is unique. Right now Google plus is rather boring because none of my friends use it. Facebook is king at the moment, but I believe the majority will eventually shift to Google+ because it is overall a better platform. Twitter is simple, short and sweet and I think it should stay that way. People love it for simple updates and it’s a super easy way to follow topics or people you are interested in.
I don’t think there will be a winner in this. G+ will most likely end up co-existing with FB and Twitter.
Thanks alot for the G+ invite, loving it so far!!
Is there a way to upload photos from the IPad been trying…
Thanks again
no problem. Did you try the Google+ App for iOS?
Thanks got it wasn’t going through earlier
Users of social media sites tend to behave like swarms, I do think now that Facebook has peaked and will go the way of space…
We just need News International to buy Facebook and that will tell us everything.
Tony.