You can’t not use Facebook! You just can’t. The website is too usable, too huge, and too addicting. Whether, like me, you use it mainly as an elaborate address book or you are a power user who can’t live without knowing the latest about what’s on your friends’ walls, a Facebook presence is a must.
With that said, it’s obvious that the folks over at Facebook are a little jealous at the recent success of Twitter. So much so that they will soon be introducing a redesigned homepage that mimics Twitter’s functionality. The Facebook homepage will have a status input area at the top and below that will be a real time stream of your friends recent updates. The Facebook homepage has more functionality. Where twitter is 140 characters of text only, Facebook allows text, photos, videos, causes, etc.
Further bringing Facebook in line with Twitter’s model is Facebook’s merging of personal profiles and public pages. Like on Twitter, where you can follow a user without them following you back, Facebook’s integration of pages and profiles will give it a more Twitter-like feel by making the overall experience more transparent.
Facebook has come a long way from where it began. It its original inception, it allowed the user to view static profiles and had minimal interaction. With this change, Facebook will retain the robustness of its many services while gaining the agility necessary to compete with Twitter and other similar limited-purpose websites.
I can’t wait to try out the new Facebook homepage. I doubt it will replace my “need” for Twitter, but it may for some. What are your thoughts?