My sister-in-law is visiting from Vancouver and asked me to explain the difference between Twitter and Facebook.
As I tried to explain what I saw as the difference, I found I was delving way too deep into webcentric language and was absolutely failing in helping her (a very mainstream user of Facebook). Then I turned to Twitter.
I posted the following update: “I’m trying to explain the difference between Twitter and Facebook to my sister-in-law. What’s the easiest, simplest way to do that?” around an hour ago and have since gotten a bunch of good responses.
Below are are a bunch of good ones. I’ll update as I get more.
@techdiva66 twitter is short, character-limited updates & facebook gives you more options for communicating as well as games & apps
@billiegirltoo twitter is up to the second raw thought. facebook allows editing. twitter has a personal feeling
@jpurnell twitter is lower-stakes status updates
@brew7vwp on twitter you talk to strangers you like, on facebook you talk to friends you barely remember
@victordlt Twitter is Facebook in KISS mode (Keep it Simple Stupid). More Simple and Faster.
@calindrome Twitter is a cocktail party; Facebook is recess.
@Goose Facebook is Twitter for people with Internet agoraphobia.
@JD_Southard Facebook is so 2008. Twitter is a social networking experiment in real time connecting people thru a limited # of characters
@ahachmi twitter is where you can vent your mood, sure fbook does the same, but in Twitter it is nothing but the venting of thoughts.
@MyNameisRazzle Facebook Status without the Facebook.
@victordlt Twitter is Facebook with about 10,000 less settings.
@tilga “its like facebook but w/o all the apps. just the status updates” is what i say… GL.
@craiggav Twitter is Facebook without any of the annoying quizzes.
@Adamw13 twitter is only status messages none of the superflous stuff
@ThatsTwit twitter is up to the second raw thought. facebook allows editing. twitter has a personal feeling http://twurl.nl/egr0mw
@bderico Facebook is more about you than it is about what you are doing. Twitter’s updates are more frequent and carry a bit more.
@thawrite1 its facebook with just the status msgs
Twitter doesn’t have Mafia Wars and therefore wins.
Twitter is simple in every way for all kinds of user
New to twitter, avoided it because it’s been described with too much similarity to facebook, and facebook is getting on my nerves. If I had to describe it, twitter is like your mailbox before the junk gets mixed in.
Oh and welcome to the Northeast, moved here myself last September.