Facebook blinks, copies Twitter, still gets it wrong.

From the Facebook Blog comes the admission that they are having to change their model and copy Twitter:

As more and more information flows through Facebook, the need for people to easily discover the most recent and relevant content has grown. That's why when we redesigned the profile last year, we focused on the Wall—the stream of information telling you what is going on with a person—rather than the previous profile style of boxes containing unchanging information. This was a big step in our evolution because it moved Facebook in the direction of helping people share immediate experiences with one another: a thought, a status, a photo, a note, a feeling.

Translation - we're copying Twitter's real time stream.

In 2007, we popularized the term Social Graph to describe how Facebook maps out people's connections. The idea is that these connections—whether friendships, affiliations or interests—exist already in the real world, and all we're trying to do is map them out. We believe that connecting people to their friends is just the beginning, and we're working hard on making Facebook a place for people to connect with and keep track of all the interests in their lives.

Translation: By 2009 it was clear no one gives a sh*t about the Social Graph and will connect to anyone and anything they damn well want - especially Celebrities - not just their "Friends".

One way to think about this is as a timeline—or a stream. As people share more, the timeline gets filled in more and more with what is happening with everything you're connected to. The pace of updates accelerates. This creates a continuous stream of information that delivers a deeper understanding for everyone participating in it. As this happens, people will no longer come to Facebook to consume a particular piece or type of content, but to consume and participate in the stream itself.

Translation - we're copying Twitter's real time stream because its more interesting and works better than our clunky comms.

In order to make this a reality, we must build Facebook to give everyone the power to share anything they want and connect with anyone they want. The way we're doing that is to first extend people's ability to connect with everything that interests them, and to give people a way to get updates from all of these connections. Then, we're going to increase the pace of the stream, so you can immediately see what is going on around you.

Translation - we're copying Twitter's asymmetric Social Graph because it works better

Starting today, we are announcing new profiles for public figures and organizations. Once called Pages, these new profiles will now begin looking and functioning just like user profiles. Just as you connect with friends on Facebook, you can now connect and communicate with celebrities, musicians, politicians and organizations.

Translation: Twitter is better at getting the adoring masses linking to the valuable, saleable assets on the SocNet

We're also going to make some changes to the home page. The new home page will let you see everything that's shared by your friends and connections as it happens. It will also provide you more control by letting you choose exactly who you see among the people and things you are connected to. You can decide you no longer want to get updates from your old friend from high school who you rarely talk to, or you can filter the stream to only see updates about your family members

Translation: We're copying Twitter because that comment that Facebook is for people you used to know whereas Twitter is for people you want to know made it clear Facebook's "Social Graph" model was a bust flush

But they've still got it wrong, because they haven't limited the message size, which in the higher speed world of a real time feed means the "River of News" becomes a Tsunami of Twaddle - there is a limit to what people can process per minute. As anyone who has worked in real time systems knows, when you increase the velocity you have to decrease the volume of the content.

Also, they will have to open up their API's so the innovation in Edge of Network services (search, content aggregators like Tweetdeck, metadata aggregation like Grader etc) that Twitter fosters can happen. There is no way they will be able to keep up with in house development. It also makes it far harder to run a walled garden system if they do this. (Update - I see O'Reilly came to the same conclusion over here)

The other thing we suspect is that they haven't architected their network for real time comms - it nearly broke Twitter with c 1.2m people, so we watch with bated breath to see how Facebook's architecture will cope with 120m people.

What I love most about this Facebook post is its tone - its setting out things that everyone knows as if they are new discoveries. We wait with (another) bated breath for another Facebook email in a few months time talking about reducing message size, and presenting this as a brand new insight.

Update - quite a few people have pointed out that the Facebook model is more similar to Friendfeed than Twitter - good point, and thats what I meant by "getting it wrong still" in that I think Friendfeed has suffered from two issues I noted above:

- Too much information on the real time feed
- Not letting a user community define/design the service systems

Facebook will in my view have the the same issues to contend with.

Update - useful thought by Stuart Hall:

PS: Note Twitter itself has had a refresh, with integrated Trends and Search functionality.

Good point - Twitter is increasing its functionality as well,