Adam's Tumblelog

Why “Twitter Connect” isn’t enough

Techcrunch has a story today that Twitter is prepping it’s “Twitter Connect” offering.

Here’s why it isn’t a threat to Facebook Connect:

• Overlap.  90% of people are already on Facebook and using Facebook Connect.
• Data.  Twitter has conversations.  Facebook has all your conversations, layers of data on relationships, photos, interests and more.  People also have fewer friends on Facebook, and these are the friends they want to take with them.
• Functionality.  It isn’t important to me to be able to automatically post something to Twitter, I can do that through a Twitter widget or Facebook App.  The value in these “Connect” offerings is being able to take my “social history” with me to any site.  Twitter’s data isn’t so much a history as it is a glimpse.

Here’s what Twitter should do.  Focus on what it’s platform does best: help people quickly communicate and share interests.  Build out groups (we’ve heard of this forever), build a real set of event-based tools.  Create easier tools for not-for-profits to integrate Twitter into their website and giving campaigns.

Would you pick Twitter Connect over Facebook Connect?