Yesterday I posted about an interesting trick that could be used to view your live feed from within a Firefox sidebar. The trick was pretty useful in that I didn’t have to navigate to Facebook to view my feed anymore. Within a short period of time, Facebook effectively disabled the widget, making the trick a simple short term tool.
The tool illustrated a lot of the potential that I see in the company competing directly with Twitter though. I can understand why Facebook disabled direct access to the widget though. The primary reason being that using the widget within your sidebar removed the impressions to CNN’s site. I don’t think it was a good decision though. CNN would have received more exposure every time someone updated their status.
For the time being, all hope of a twitter-like Facebook status product has been flushed down the drain. I still firmly believe that Facebook has the potential to kill Twitter’s mainstream reach but the window of time for Facebook to strike is rapidly closing. So why won’t Facebook make status updates publicly accessible? Honestly, I have no idea.
There are very few reasons I can come up with. First, Facebook may not want to compete with Twitter. Additionally, they may not have to compete. As long as a large percentage of active Twitter users continue to share their tweets through Facebook, there’s no need for Facebook to make a publicly available status update. Twitter takes care of that for them.
Do you think Facebook could take on Twitter? Would there be any benefit to that?
![[Inside Social Apps 2012]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/ISA2012_336x100_F_RegisterNow.gif)
![[AllFacebook Stats: Facebook Analytics for Your Business]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/stpro_allfacebookstats.gif)
![[How can Facebook change your business?]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/FMB_A_MAY2011_336x100_F.gif)
I use flock’s people panel as a “live feed-like” app for FB. Very efficient actually.
Comment by mewshew — January 23, 2009 @ 5:04 am
FB could prolly knock twitter out by doing what you suggest but then how would they deliver their ads? FB is, more than anything else, a business that serves ads and guarantees targeted advertisement. That was the motive behind apps (keep them in FB) and the motive for FBConnect (tie them back to FB when you can’t keep them in). Drive ppl back to FB and serve them an ad. If you start letting out the data, what’s to prop up that business model? As far as I can tell, Twitter doesn’t seem to make any money…
Comment by Facebook User — January 23, 2009 @ 7:55 am
Since I began using Twitter last year my Facebook use has decreased. Perhaps the novelty has worn off? Or perhaps if Facebook offered a Twitter-like app I'd be using it more. Difficult to say. Right now, I like the simplicity of Twitter. I still view the two sites as very different. Why can't they co-exist? For Facebook to take on Twitter, they'd have to make sure the app was shit-hot. And are Twitter folks also Facebook users? Would Facebook users go for a Twitter-like app?
Comment by Liz Hover — January 23, 2009 @ 11:22 am
Still works for me? http://www.facebook.com/widgets/livefeed.php?app_... ?
Comment by Philip — February 14, 2009 @ 3:18 am
yess… i think so…
Comment by rino — August 7, 2009 @ 4:00 am
nope it does not work Philip
Comment by Gio — March 31, 2010 @ 12:45 am
Move to==> http://www.fancytvs.com http://www.fancytvs.com http://www.fancytvs.com
Comment by sara — September 14, 2011 @ 2:57 am