On the road to TwitBook: is Facebook the new sharing features of defensive or preemptive?

Editor's note: this is a guest post written by Tom Anderson, former President, founder and the first friend on MySpace. You can now find volumes on Facebook, Twitter and Google +.

A few weeks ago I asked if Google + was putting Facebook on the defensive. After yesterday's Facebook ads I don't think there is any question. Many journalists described the promised changes as new users control over private life "and suggested that Facebook just gives us the opportunity to be more private as G +. Some even suggested that this new emphasis on privacy is "about-face" on Facebook, a former philosophy. I would assume that Facebook has changed their attitude about privacy at all. My gut tells me — and it's really a guess, not insider info here — that the announced changes mainly significant because Facebook users is actually something much more. Facebook now more reactive now, then they ever had, but this is not just from G +. It is also out of Twitter.  This is actually because Twitter suggests possible G + vision for the future. Sound confusing? Let me explain.

G + is primarily a combination of & Facebook Twitter. Many journalists seem to have missed this rather basic idea. They see G + as a competitor to Facebook and that it would be difficult to pull users away from his friend network. From where I sit (only Google can tell us, from checking their usage logs), way more people interested in Twitter as a public exchange of G + than in private exchanges among friends. In other words, G + popularity driven by Twitter as an activity not Facebook activities. (G) + probably has something around 30 million users at the moment.

This is nothing to sneeze at. However, Twitter, of course, orders of magnitude more and is still growing like mad. Concern for Facebook that G ++ may become as large as Twitter and then G + can start slowly pulling users into more private behavior, which usually happens on Facebook. This is a possible future for G + even more terrible for Facebook than Twitter now or the future, because at least assume that Twitter will never try to make a "private" thing.

My guess is Announces Facebook users more front and Center to access the "Confidentiality", because, in fact, Facebook plans to make an even greater impetus to the public, Twitter as. Consider this: when asked what he thought was the most important part of yesterday's release, Facebook's VP of product Chris Cox confirmed that Facebook was "sharing tool", and bearing in mind the audience you're sharing with is important. He did not talk about private life, except to say that nothing can really guarantee your privacy online. (Which is pretty standard line on privacy for Zuckerberg.)

In practical terms, what does this mean for Facebook? I think this means that we'll see Facebook get more "Jet" on its side of the public, as well as his private group Exchange. I think this means that we'll see Facebook users push for public and "mass" distribution. More specifically I think we will see changes "fan pages" and compilation (perhaps even "double news"), so that Facebook can allow users to gain experience "Twitter" from public figures, brands and sources of interest, which they follow on Facebook.

Facebook understanding Twitter power at an early stage and its Twitter account ' entity is a "status update" — in a way that has made a huge difference for Facebook. It includes elements of Twitter, without prejudice to its core. Gradually the usefulness of Twitter has become less & less about following your friends and more after your interests. Twitter behavior evolved from "what are you doing?" to "what's going on?" by doing so, Twitter has become a real threat to the standard gatekeepers news. I have that this is something that Zuckerberg has always wanted for his "news" — Facebook should not just be about what your friends are doing, but it must also "sharing tool" in the sense of grander. Facebook has not yet created a "news feed" that really gives you personalized news the way Twitter can or Google + now you can.

So G + puts Facebook on the defensive? Yes, but only because G + is a combination of & Facebook, Twitter and Facebook, at a certain level can have always had a little Twitter envy in his blood. Now if Facebook can evolve to give us a TwitBook, then they would beat G + at their own game, the creation of the first popular all-in-one public-"social network" to G + can ever really get off the ground. Naturally the question arises: is this a private combination in one service, what people really want? "only time will tell.

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