posted Mon 06 Dec 2010 06:17 PM  

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Product: Twitter
Price: Free!
From: www.twitter.com

Verdict: not recommended
Why: Facebook pretty much covers its functions, but it is useful for specific followings

Main Review:

With mobile phones users increasingly becoming mobile internet users, the ease of mobile social updates has become a staple to many of us.

Twitter has not really caught on in Singapore. As far as I know, most people turn to Facebook for a quick online fix of social-life updates, leaving Friendster, MSN, IRC, and of course ICQ, in online dust.

I was tempted to try it mainly because a couple of my friends who study/studied in the US picked up on it. Turns out Twitter works like the 'status' function of Facebook. Some call it 'micro-blogging' and basically you update it regularly, people 'follow' you, and vice versa.



The advantage it has over Facebook, is you can follow people or companies or causes or basically anything. I realise that this trend has caught on on Facebook as well, but Twitter does not require friends to be 'approved', so you could follow celebrities, companies, Mickey Mouse, your neighbour you secretly have the hots for, and basically anyone or anything. However, the idea of fanpages has quickly developed on Facebook as well. Perhaps its simplicity is the draw of Twitter. It has one function, it is easy to use, and people bother to update it regularly.

As someone who uses Facebook regularly, I think Twitter becomes a bit of a chore to update and follow regularly. People usually don't like to duplicate functions of things they use because it just becomes redundant and bothersome. I gave up on Twitter within a week.