Woohoo, another debate. I love a good debate, the tension, the face off, the sweat, oh sorry, that's the hockey game between Canada & Russia tonight at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics ▌♥ ▌ Go Canada Go ▌♥ ▌ (sorry, shameless plug there). There is something about debates though, especially on hot topics, that give me an adrenaline rush and gets the creative juices flowing. I really enjoy pushing extolling sharing my opinions on current, and even not so current, topics of interest. So, without further adieu, I will now climb upon my proverbial soapbox.
Twitter and facebook, currently two of the most well known social media sites on the internet. There are others, as we well know. Facebook whoops MySpace's proverbial butt (yes I know there are still a lot of users on MySpace, but it's not for me), I barely skipped a beat when I switched over and I haven't looked back, I can't even recall when I was last on my own MySpace account. There is LinkedIn, personally, not sure if I know anyone on that and have no idea what it is, and now Google has the new kid on the block, Buzz. I have a total of ONE contact on Buzz so far, and a lovely contact she is. Numbers are one thing, they don't lie, but they can be misleading, personally, when I meet someone knew these days (IRL), if we decide to exchange phone numbers, the next questions are, "do you have facebook?" and then, "do you tweet?". Let's face it folks, it's facebook and twitter that are the real contenders here.
I have only recently really started getting into tweeting, although I've had my twitter account since sometime last year. Currently I sit at 194 tweets, I'm following 60 people/accounts, I have 41 followers (wow!), and 2 of those have me listed (no, not that kind of list, a twitter list. If I ever decide I'm smart enough to have a technical blog, I'll be able to link to my own info. In the meantime, try bitrebels for an explanation.), 12 of my own lists and one list that I follow. I'm sure I could make an equation out of all that, not really my gig anymore though. What it does equal though is, comparatively speaking, I am still most definitely a newbie in the twitter world.
Facebook is another story altogether, I have 356 friends (sort of middle of the road there, and I'm good with that), far too many applications, which need to be culled, and several "fan" pages. I have been on facebook for, well, ummmm, awhile, 4 or 5 years? Point is, I am definitely NOT a facebook newbie.
So what does all this mean in view of the social network debate? In my world, comparing the two is rather an apples and oranges question. They are different in their own, and very distracting time-hogging useful ways. For me, they complement each other. Facebook is truly social media, it is about friendships, networking, and even dating. Over the past few years I have reconnected with some very wonderful old friends from my past. I'm not in the, "we lost touch for a reason" camp, I truly love getting to know the adult versions of my school buddies and family members. I also find it a wonderful way to keep up to date with those on my friend list, I am a people person, I like to know what's going on in your life; I'm curious because I care. I don't, however, play games on fb anymore, I rarely engage in sharing of apps, but that is something else you will find there that is not on twitter, and I'm glad it's not on twitter. Facebook is my apple, it's shiny, dense and has lots of fibre.
Twitter is my orange. I like both apples and oranges, but somehow I always feel like I'm getting more nutrition from an orange, I'm sure they are equal in their own rights, that's just my perception. For the most part I follow photographers, writers, bloggers, geeks and a few musicians. From their tweets, I am learning a plethora of information on my favourite and most passionate areas of interest. And all those areas roll up nice and neatly into my biggest passion, education (my vitamin c). I love to learn, if I don't understand or know something I look it up, if I feel like I am not getting the answer I want, I research and dig deeper. My tweeters (is that the right term? like I said, newbie), are quite often, doing a lot of the legwork for me and I am absorbing the most amazing information, from up & coming tech gadgets, to photo technics, to how to get blog traffic, to word of the day for my writing. Twitter has become my place to get information, to be informed, and to inform (well, still getting to that stage).
The long and short of it is, for my personal choice, I pick both. I can't pick one over the other. They each serve their purpose in my world. My ever expanding, right from my own living room, world. It's a good world, despite living in the middle of nowhere, I still feel connected.
Many people will walk in and out of your life,
But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
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