(2010-10-16) Ravikant Rifkin Twitter Undervalues Vs Facebook

Naval Ravikant and Adam Rifkin think Twitter is undervalued compared to FaceBook. They think that the Interest Graph created by Twitter's Asymmetric Follow is a better fit for Advertising than Facebook's Symmetric Follow Social Graph.

See related 2009-05-13-OreillyFollowSymmetricVsAsym.

A follow is the ultimate Opt In. There is no clearer statement of interest on the Internet today, because you are giving permission for that person or entity to push data at you as much as they want as long as they’re interesting to you. Interested intent + Opt-in = The dream of every marketer. (Permission Marketing)

Twitter’s Interest Graph seamlessly accommodates whales, including celebrities, professionals, and increasingly businesses. By contrast, it is downright painful to maintain concurrent presences on the dual Facebook graphs—Facebook’s lack of tools to automate Profiles and Pages wastes energy, goodwill, and time. Twitter has no such ambiguity, and as a result it is growing its own kind of lightweight business-related engagement.

• See Jun18 piece by Adam Rifkin on problems with being a FaceBook "whale". (Where FaceBook nudges you to have a brand-like Facebook Page instead of individual Facebook Profile.)

• See Aug19 piece by Adam: Facebook has only 3 million Whales -- Branded Individual and Business Pages -- that collectively represent only 5.3 billion clicks of the Like Button thus far... Twitter currently has at least 10 million Whales, and more customers are willing to FOLLOW something than LIKE it.

The interest graph makes itself most explicit in Facebook Pages, which also works on the principles of one-way following, shared interests, public streams, and aspirational relationships... Facebook Pages are rarely visited after an initial “like.” Community behaviors have not developed around Facebook’s interest graph. Many users consider all Facebook Page messages to be of low value—akin to spam—and therefore do not welcome higher volume.

They have recommendations for Twitter:

Hopefully the elevation of Feedburner’s Dick Costolo to (Twitter) CEO signals a shift back to the correct strategy: Don’t monetize the Microblogging Client, monetize the feed.

Twitter has the ability to power the OpenWeb versions of Facebook Page-s and Facebook Place-s, and that’s where the real money is. Don’t make brand advertisers have to think—provide a clear, open alternative to Facebook where they can promote their own Websites and brands instead of on Facebook Pages, and the dollars will start to flow.