Social Media’s Future : Twitter vs. Facebook

As we’ve seen in the past fortnight, Twitter and Facebook are becoming more and more unique in the applications that they serve for social media users. Facebook has become a collection of enjoyable personal activities, whilst Twitter has taken to playing a more solemn role in the world we live in. In both instances, both social media platforms have moved away from the very core functions that they were primarily built on, and have evolved somewhat becoming different and have, as a consequence, branched out.

When Twitter first came around in 2006, Twitter and Facebook both shared similarities in their functions — they were both were primarily used by their respective users to tweet/post about their daily lives, and to share new material that surfaced on the internet with friends, family and strangers.
Gradually over time, the split became increasingly more apparent and visible in the eyes of the beholder. Facebook began expanding more on those ingredients needed to bring friends close together; Twitter took a pioneering path to conquering the web for real-time news reporting. Indeed, with businesses discovering Twitter as a business-friendly environment where they could thrive on, Twitter was radically changed.
In 2011, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook Virginia. By the time the earthquake’s power was felt in New York, tweets had already been long made warning of the expected earthquake. Twitter boasted that its services had become faster than even earthquakes.
To gain a clear contrast between Facebook and Twitter today, we must consider the most famous events taking place on both social media platforms. In early 2013, the ASL Ice Bucket Challenge began spreading on Facebook; by mid-2014, most Facebook users had heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge. A fortnight ago, on 9 August, Michael Brown was shot. This led to protests in Mr. Brown’s hometown of Ferguson, and Twitter was used to live-tweet highlighted events as they unfolded.
If this trend continues, Facebook and Twitter will continue becoming more diverse and more unique when compared to one another in terms of function and feel.