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CNN’s live Obama inauguration stream will make facebook the new twitter

by Phil Barrett

Twitter was the social media darling and top story in 2008 with over 700% growth.  It even trumped the news that facebook had finally caught up to myspace for overall traffic.

Then came the news that facebook was offering $500 million in cash and stocks to buy Twitter.  Twitter declined. Thanks to a flexible API, there are now over 150 tools that leverage, integrate and build on the Twitter platform.

It seems like nothing will stop Twitter’s rise to world social media dominiation. Except maybe facebook.

CNN and facebook have teamed up to offer live facebook status streaming during Obama’s inauguration on January 20th.  Point your browser to http://www.cnn.com/live and then update your facebook status which will then stream to the CNN live page as pictured above on the 20th.

What’s interesting is that facebook is turning what was a closed broadcast system (your status update to your friend network) into an open broadcast system – like Twitter.

The end result could fundamentally change the way people use facebook while trumping Twitter’s momentum.

facebook could be the new twitter – and the story of 2009.

They’ve already trumped friendfeed (a personal social media stream aggregator) by copying their unique features into facebook’s homepage, so this doesn’t come as a complete surprise.

facebook also has something that twitter doesn’t have – critial mass of non techno-geeks.

That $500 million offer may look pretty good afterall.

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  • http://zunaidkhan.blogspot.com/ Zunaid Khan

    Hey Phil,
    Well written post as usual. I have to say though that I don’t think Facebook will be the new Twitter. Although FB has taken inspiration from FriendFeed and Twitter by adding similar features to its service, at their core they are vastly different. Twitter is clean and easy to use, whereas FB is very cluttered. Twitter is a more effective & impactful means of social media interaction, a real time conversation stream. During Obama’s inauguration I expect to get a greater sense of this momentous event through Twitter than FB plus will feel more immersed in the event with the ability to trade tweets with people twittering from the event. I also think Twitter users ability to create momentum & exposure about something they feel passionate is very unique to the service, take the HOHOTO (hohoto.ca) party created by Toronto Twitters users via Twitter which raised $25k for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank in less than two weeks.

  • http://zunaidkhan.blogspot.com Zunaid Khan

    Hey Phil,
    Well written post as usual. I have to say though that I don’t think Facebook will be the new Twitter. Although FB has taken inspiration from FriendFeed and Twitter by adding similar features to its service, at their core they are vastly different. Twitter is clean and easy to use, whereas FB is very cluttered. Twitter is a more effective & impactful means of social media interaction, a real time conversation stream. During Obama’s inauguration I expect to get a greater sense of this momentous event through Twitter than FB plus will feel more immersed in the event with the ability to trade tweets with people twittering from the event. I also think Twitter users ability to create momentum & exposure about something they feel passionate is very unique to the service, take the HOHOTO (hohoto.ca) party created by Toronto Twitters users via Twitter which raised $25k for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank in less than two weeks.

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  • http://current.com/topics/88852690/inauguration/new/0.htm Candyce

    Hey, this was a really good article, but I doubt Facebook will over take Twitter with “updating your status and streaming it to CNN”. Why? Mainly because CurrentTV has “Hacked the Debates” and “Hacked the Election”. Already, meaning, we posted on Twitter and the tweets were shown on CurrentTV. And just like then Current is doing it for the Inauguration. Check out the link I gave

  • http://current.com/topics/88852690/inauguration/new/0.htm Candyce

    Hey, this was a really good article, but I doubt Facebook will over take Twitter with “updating your status and streaming it to CNN”. Why? Mainly because CurrentTV has “Hacked the Debates” and “Hacked the Election”. Already, meaning, we posted on Twitter and the tweets were shown on CurrentTV. And just like then Current is doing it for the Inauguration. Check out the link I gave

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com/ Phil Barrett

    Zunaid & Candice – thanks for your comments

    My point of view was more that due to the massive free exposure facebook is getting from cnn from this event that facebook as a story and relevant social media medium in the U.S. will make facebook the story of 2009… much like twitter was in 2008.

    i agree that there some inherent advantages to twitter, but as we know in marketing, it’s not always the best product or service that becomes a best seller, but often the one with the widest exposure

    it will be interesting to see if other social media tools / sites such as twitter also get a bump into the mainstream as a result of the inauguration.

    i’m looking forward to it!

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com Phil Barrett

    Zunaid & Candice – thanks for your comments

    My point of view was more that due to the massive free exposure facebook is getting from cnn from this event that facebook as a story and relevant social media medium in the U.S. will make facebook the story of 2009… much like twitter was in 2008.

    i agree that there some inherent advantages to twitter, but as we know in marketing, it’s not always the best product or service that becomes a best seller, but often the one with the widest exposure

    it will be interesting to see if other social media tools / sites such as twitter also get a bump into the mainstream as a result of the inauguration.

    i’m looking forward to it!

  • http://blogtillyoudrop.wordpress.com/ Lolly

    Wow! Facebook certainly have the potential to challenge Twitter with this, although I wonder how many of my non-geek friends will actually change their status 5-10 times a day (equivalent of Twitter updates)… It’ll be interesting to observe Facebook behaviours in the coming year…

  • http://blogtillyoudrop.wordpress.com Lolly

    Wow! Facebook certainly have the potential to challenge Twitter with this, although I wonder how many of my non-geek friends will actually change their status 5-10 times a day (equivalent of Twitter updates)… It’ll be interesting to observe Facebook behaviours in the coming year…