All this talk about people deleting their Facebook accounts is apparently “building momentum”. What’s my take on it? I’m really not bothered to be honest. Facebook don’t seem to be either… Their latest “security meeting” was nothing more than a quick get together to have a wide ranging discussion – it was hardly panic talks.

Here’s why I won’t be removing my Facebook account anytime soon:

1. I am careful with what I share on the internet, specifically personal data
2. I understand how to press Account -> Privacy Settings and toggle as I wish
3. I am careful with what I share on the internet

It’s that simple. You don’t have to delete your Facebook account, and show the man that now you’re talking. Just be sensible about it. Never trust anyone online, let alone massive corporations, that frankly probably abuse your privacy left right and center anyway – They’re the worst culprits.

Facebook isn’t out to get you, you’re probably out to get yourself. Be responsible.

Thursday the 10th September saw an announcement come out of the Facebook offices that they were soon to be launching a new feature to status updates where you can directly include & link to your friends. How are they going to do this? With @mentions – just like their friends, Twitter.

What this has now effectively done is pretty much replicate the functionality that Twitter gives users. In addition to this Facebook recently opened up status updates for public consumption, as well as the ability to search those status updates. With the introduction of Facebook Lite, they are now nearly replicating Twitter functionality. I’m starting to really seriously wonder now – are Twitter’s days numbered?

Facebook had made their plans clear long before these features sprung out of the ground. Back in October 2008, Twitter apparently rejected a $500m offer from Facebook to buy the social media platform. Back then, Twitter founder Evan Williams said that they considered it “seriously” but ultimately they still wanted to achieve more out of Twitter – they weren’t done yet.

“Maybe we’ll see each other in the marketplace” - Evan Williams, Twitter Founder – Oct 2008

Since that time there has been very very little evidence of that ever happening. Twitter have been very successful with generating cash for their service (some $50m), with alot of talk from the Twitter crew about monetization, and grand plans for the service – but in nearly 11 months there hasn’t been much to speak of.

When I say not much, Twitter started to include small text adverts into their web interface in March 2009. They also re-jigged the user interface to give more emphasis on their powerful search functionality – but other than that, anything that is happening is happening behind closed doors.

Which begs the question – Do Twitter actually have any plans to make money, and if so, how far away are they from exposing and implementing them? A betting man would say they likely do have something up their sleeve, however the execution of any seems to be evading them at this point. Slowly though – they are running out of time.

Should Twitter be afraid of the potential of Facebook killing them off? If it was any other competitor I would say no, but Facebook have a proven track record of being good implementers, plus the fact they have a MASSIVE user base. What Twitter has over Facebook though is the micro-blogging angle to people outside of our friends and family – as well as the massive Twitter application ecosystem.

This is where Facebook is seriously lagging. Their application APIs are okay, but how many Facebook applications can you think of where you can basically re-skin and add functionality to what’s already available? You can’t. Facebook themselves develop the one and only Facebook iPhone application – there are no competitors. Whereas Twitter has dozens of applications made by 3rd party developers, all who have the freedom to charge for their Twitter clients (and they do!). Plus the fact Twitter make $0 out of this – nothing.

It’s this freedom which currently Facebook needs to address. The beauty of Twitter for me is being able to have that content divide from friends and family, as well as the freedom to use as many different clients and ways to tweet as I want. Facebook is for friends and family – personal updates, Twitter is for work and techie stuff (with a little bit of personal stuff – but not much!). This are the main reasons why I couldn’t at this time use one service – either one.

Twitter seriously needs to take this as a warning shot (if they haven’t already). They need to up their game – that $50m investment isn’t free money – at some point the investors will want to see some return on that – as the clock ticks I would certainly be sweating if I had handed over a bunch of cash! They have a few options for monetization – some more likely, some less likely – some ideas:

• Charge application developers for use of the API
• Charge for enhanced use of the search API – offer other paid services in this area.
• More ads – Maybe we could see ads between tweets ala digg?
• Something different?

I’d probably bet on something different myself. What could that be? We won’t see any sign of it until 2010.

It appears that Facebook could be close to creating folder structures within their Messages system based on some small changes that have been recently introduced. It’s been a long time coming, but it finally looks like Facebook are looking to enhance their messaging functionality beyond user to user messaging.

Whilst the functionality is currently not present, the URLs for your Facebook inbox have changed slightly:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/inbox/?folder=[fb]messages&page=1

The query string “folder=[fb]” being the key indicator on this one. It seems to suggest that “[fb]” is the root folder, with future options to tweak that variable to point to different folders. The sidebar has also updated with some scope for adding folders:

The Facebook messaging system has been pretty simple from its inception. Since launch it’s been basic private messaging functionality, sharing links etc was the first enhancement, but it’s been pretty stale since that point. Adding folders will branch this functionality out even further – pushing into email territory for real. Don’t forget they also offer some basic email address functionality which works with Facebook messaging.

What do you think? It’s looking pretty likely to me!