Twitter gets mighty social for an ‘information network’
“Last year, the story was all about the “Twitterification” of Facebook. Today will be about the “Facebookification” of Twitter.”
– Ben Parr, Mashable.
About two hours ago Twitter announced some of the biggest changes they’ve made in years. Mashable (and others) reported, and thousands of tweets and re-tweets abounded.
The most interesting part of the shift is most certainly the introduction of on-site media consumption. Instead of acting as a live streaming ‘contents page’ or directory, the new Twitter embraces the job of the chapters too – you’re no longer diverted off-site to view videos or images, instead the content will appear in your stream.
What’s particularly noteworthy is that Twitter has long maintained that it’s an information network, not a social one like Facebook. So it strikes me as interesting just how ‘social’ it seems to be once you start staying on-site to consume media instead of going elsewhere.
What’s more, take a look at the video – it follows someone through daily life – getting dressed, playing records, spending time with a lover. I for one think the advertisement of the new Twitter goes a long way to socialise the “information network”.
But as Ben Parr noted, the networks are learning from each other. So if they both slightly mutate into new versions of themselves, by incorporating each others’ best attributes, I’m all for cross-pollination.