I have just recently discovered that there are some aspects of social networking that I really like.  Due to some internal development projects, my employer suggested that employees create Facebook accounts to help push our Facebook trivia application.  I was skeptical but signed up anyway.  Within just a couple of weeks, I was talking to friends and family that I hadn’t had contact with in years.

While watching the Olympics this year I got interested in all the hype around Twitter.  I didn’t really understand micro-blogging until I started myself…I was hooked.  The ability to follow people that I wouldn’t normally communicate with has been very cool.  Currently my Twitter world consists of Olympians, Microsoft Developers and a very funny girl with a strangely familiar, sarcastic sense of humor.

Facebook is about Family and Friends

With Facebook, I’ve been able to get in touch with family and friends that I haven’t seen or spoken to in years.  People that I went to school with.  People that I used to work with.  We can easily share things that are happening, photos and videos.  I check Facebook at least once a day.  I’m eager to connect with them again and while our paths have taken us (often) drastically different directions, we all have a common place to get together and just talk about stuff.

But there are two faces to Facebook.  I’m a big fan of extensibility.  Most applications that support plug-ins or addons provides flexibility that the original creators couldn’t foresee.  But just because you CAN extend an application doesn’t mean that you should.  There are so many “applications” on Facebook that it often gets in the way of what I use Facebook for…..connecting with my friends.  The signal to noise ratio is so low that it takes away from the essence of Facebook.

Twitter is about direct communication

On Twitter, I can follow nearly anyone.  Microsoft developers, game developers, average Joe developers.  Celebrities, comedians, people that I just think are funny.  This is two-way communication and it gives the the ability to reach out to people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.  I’ve learned a lot from people on Twitter that I wouldn’t normally have run across in my standard browsing on the Internet.  And it can be a powerful tool when used properly.  Conan O’Brien says that he sold out his entire tour with just a single Tweet.  Not a single penny spent on marketing it.

But what can you really say in 140 characters or less?  Most of the time it’s easy, especially with URL shortening resources like http://bit.ly.  Occasionally though, it gets in the way and you really have to stop and think about how to get your point across as succinctly as possible.

Best of Both Worlds

In all of this, I rarely go to the Facebook and Twitter websites themselves.  There are many different ways to get your Facebook and Twitter fix.  Two of my favorite are TweetDeck and Seesmic.  These clients give me the things that I like from Facebook and Twitter without all of the things that I don’t like.  They have built-in support for URL shortening and picture/video sharing.  They’re also available for multiple platforms including the iPhone (TweetDeck) so you can tweet and post to Facebook on the go.

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