Updates and Texts and Tweets, Oh My

I spent some time at a family reunion this past week and was asked by one of my "uncles-in-law" about Facebook and Twitter. The reunion was basically organized through Facebook, and as this uncle had yet to take the plunge into Facebook (he is quite technically proficient, he just hasn't had the time) we got into a discussion about the differences between things like Facebook and Twitter and their relationship to text messaging. As this conversation is pretty fresh in my memory, I figured I'd get it down on paper...er...well on virtual paper at least.

SMS/Text Messaging - Very much a one-to-one conversation. You interact directly with someone else and communication is generally conversational in tone and content. Reports say that texting is the de facto method of communication for youths (or "utes" for you Joe Pesci fans), surpassing phone calls. A recent survey by Comscore shows teens text on average of 2000 messages a month, with some texting upwards of 15,000 or more.

Twitter and Tweets - Similar to texting as there is a character limit (in fact the 140 character limit is taken directly from the SMS limits of cell phone carries), but tweeting is more of a one-to-many dissemination of information. This is purely my opinion, but I don't consider tweets to be "conversational" so much as "informational" since a back-and-forth conversation via Twitter is fairly cumbersome. You can certainly tweet with the anticipation of a response, but rather than getting a response from a single, focused individual like you would with a text message the responses come from a number of disparate "followers". In addition, you generally need to subscribe to a hash tag search in order to participate in any real discussion (see #CmtyChat as an example). Regardless, a question about the "best place to eat in downtown Boston" takes on a life of its own when tweeted to thousands of followers versus texted to a friend living in Weston.

Facebook Updates -  [NOTE A quick glossary is in order: A Facebook "update" is just as the name implies, you updating your status or passing out some juicy tidbit to your friends, a "comment" is where someone replies to your update, and yoru "wall" is where information appears on your Facebook page - both your own info as well as updates from your friends] Updating your Facebook status is a bit outside the realm of services such as text messaging and microblogging (the term coined for things like Twitter), though there are similarities. For example, when you update your status on Facebook, that update is carried over to your friends' Facebook pages and just as your update shows up on their wall their updates show on your own. Therefore, updates are more interactive across a group of individuals (like Twitter, a one-to-many dissemination of info) but the ability to carry on a conversation with friends as a result of your updates is easier as you don't need to subscribe to a search or hashtag (like texting). One major difference is that you're conversing within and amongst a group - all of your friends can see, follow and participate in the conversation - even if only one other person is actually replying to your update and any subsequent comments. Of course the other obvious difference is that Facebook is a more full-featured social framework, allowing a user to not only update their status, but also post links to articles, videos, music, not to mention using any one of a number of different applications to perform things like personality tests, etc.

So there you have it. Hopefully that helps give some clarity to the various social communication methods out there. If not, feel free to leave a comment or question - I'd be happy to answer.