4 reasons Twitter could one day be bigger than Facebook

Nick Bilton from the New York Times wrote a cogent piece on why he believes Facebook is more popular than Twitter. He believes that Twitter’s idiosyncrasies such as the @ and # symbols stifle mass adoption and he describes how his sister found the process of tweeting and tagging someone to be slightly obscure.

The premise of his article in his own words:

But if Twitter hopes to grow at the pace of Facebook, it will have to figure out how to stop thinking in @ symbols, and start thinking like my sister.

I agree, but I believe Twitter could gradually blossom into the de facto social network without changing much.

I see four reasons for that.

Reason #1: For generation next, an @ and # symbol will seem less obscure
The internet “Big Bang” occurred roughly in 1996. If you were born in that year, you’d be 15 years old today and you wouldn’t know a time without the internet. If one looks at the latest Quantcast figures for US internet users ages 13-17, it appears as though this age group constitutes a larger portion of Facebook’s demographic than that of Twitter’s.

Why would a young tech savvy generation still choose Facebook over Twitter? The answer, as Bilton adroitly deduced, might be that Twitter is simply not as intuitive as Facebook, even for the inherently computer literate.

It’s interesting to note then that Twitter is stronger in the 18-34 age group than Facebook. Why is that?

I believe it’s because this important age group is America’s Information Age work force. Aspects of Information Technology permeates essentially all of the 12 most secure careers for the next decade and computer literacy training is essential for most.

This age group will continue to grow as the youngest generation transitions into tomorrow’s information workers, eventually becoming the majority, and any barriers to entry posed by Twitter’s learning curve today will deteriorate.

Reason #2: Information production is accelerating
With the accelerating production of information, Twitter’s McDonald’s Drive-Thru model of bite-sized 140 character consumption seems more natural. According to Cisco, at the start of 2012, internet traffic will be roughly 27.434 exabytes per month. One exabyte is one billion gigabytes or one million terabytes. By 2015, global internet traffic is estimated to quadruple to roughly 80.5 exabytes per month.

Whether you use social networks to connect with friends or as news sources, there will be more information produced and discussed, while the number of hours in a day remain constant.

Twitter is geared towards coping with the exaflood.

Reason #3: Twitter’s ability to feed narcissism is underrated
There’s A common saying that Facebook is for people you are friends with and Twitter is for people you want to be friends with. This means that you will have to put your best foot forward if you want to grow your social network on Twitter. Check out tweetingtoohard.com to see people who are failing at this.

Narcissism flourishes on Facebook. It’s easier to project a faux fabulous version of yourself on Facebook than on Twitter. Perpetuated by the “Like” button, family, friends and real life acquaintances are more tolerant of narcissistic behaviour.

Twitter is humbling and less forgiving. It’s arguably a better gauge of overall tact.

Your posts on Twitter are more easily lost in the noise, people will pay less attention to the links you post and if you’re obnoxious, you will suffer the anxiety of seeing your public follower count drop.

These drawbacks do not bode well for Twitter mass adoption, but it has the same underpinnings that feed vanity — and then some. By its everything public core, limelight seekers have much more to gain from a pubic viral re-tweet than a between-friends “Like” or comment.

Reason #4: iOS 5 integration
Apple announced on Tuesday, just before unveiling the iPhone 4S, that it has sold 250 million iOS devices. A great many iPod touch, iPad and iPhone owners will upgrade their eligible devices to iOS 5 when October 12th rolls around.

Twitter has been baked into iOS 5 making it easy to tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, or Maps. All an iOS 5 user has to do is sign in once in Settings. Friends’ Twitter usernames and profile pictures are even applied to Contacts.

With such tight integration, it’s going to be hard for an iOS 5 user to ignore Twitter.