Facebook on the other hand is many magnitudes bigger, but doesn’t have the same viral power that Twitter contains. Why? The big reasons are probably the closed nature of Facebook streams, the lack of a real-time search engine, and no comparable “retweet” syntax. While Facebook is tackling the first two, the third one may be what trips up Facebook’s assault on Twitter.
Public Profiles and Sharing With Everyone
First problem: Facebook is a closed platform. On Twitter, over 90% of profiles are public, allowing anyone to see tweets and share them. On Facebook, the reverse is true: most user profiles are private and only friends can see information. Part of this is because the option to make your profile public only arrived in March. It’s still all about friends, not about sharing.
Yet Facebook allowing for open profiles is a big step towards making information more shareable on the social network. We’ve also heard that options to broadcast your updates to the public are also in the works, which would be another smart move to open the platform while appeasing users worried about privacy.