TWITTER vs FACEBOOK… want to bet?

Let the game begin!

Twitter.  Facebook.  Twitter.  Facebook.  Twitter.  Facebook.

Do you have a hard time to choose?  I doubt.  Surely most of you have more than one social network account. Admit it, you’re one of the addicts;  you can’t leave a second wondering if someone has responded your updates and if your friend has commented on a picture you uploaded or you’re restless in the lecture hall because you have just remembered the crops you forgot to harvest this morning.  And you just can’t seem to get enough of one account; you figured you should have ‘this’ for friends and ‘that’ for business purposes while ‘the other’ for the latest updates on your favorite stars.  Well, I don’t blame you.  It’s like language, it’s rare to find people who is monolingual.

So I’m not a monolingual.

My two picks would (obviously…) be Twitter and Facebook and here I would like say what I like and don’t about both networks, but most of all we’ll look at the similarities and differences between them.

Basically Twitter and Facebook are both social networking sites that enables connectivity between their users by updates and media sharing.  Through a free sign-up, you can enjoy the all of the features provided.  From getting new friends, catching up with peers or getting updates from old friends,  all is possible by their updates or ‘shout outs’ on the main page of the site.  In fact, they allow photo sharing.  We love this feature, don’t we?  (Now why do I feel like a promoter…?)  Sharing gossips, showing off our incredible, summer vacation in Maui 😉 The best part is you can comment on those photos!  But these are all the ground for any social networks, even with the earlier sites like Friendster and MySpace.  If there’s no such thing, we wouldn’t be interested anyway.  So what makes them different from one another?

Since my focus is only two sites, lets go to the differences of both.  The prior difference you will notice between Twitter and Facebook is the simplicity of the former compared to the latter.  Once you sign in into Twitter, all you see is your ‘following”s updates and another column that shows the quantities of your ‘following’s, followers, lists and updates.

This is YOUR twitter home when you sign in (despite the updates, of course it would be your connection instead 😉 )

On the other hand, for Facebook, you can see so much of… well, almost everything.

On Facebook home, you will get to see your friends’ updates including the comments (and whether you and others like it or not), the requests you have, your Facebook online friends, and even friends suggested to you. Very user-friendly, ey?

More evidence on Twitter’s simplicity?

…ON STATUS UPDATES…

This is Facebook’s status update limit: 420 characters.

Meanwhile, the limit for Twitter’s status update or ‘tweet’ is 140 characters.  It also shows your latest ‘tweet’ below the typing box.

The characters allowed in one status update in Facebook is three times the Twitter’s.  Moreover, in Twitter, you can only type in texts and links but in Facebook, there’s more.  Facebook however allows texts, links with preview, images, videos and notes feature for longer text.

Talking about this available features on status updates, the links are dealt differently between these two social networks.  If in Facebook, when you want to show a photo or video, you can put the URL on the status updates and others can watch or listen to it instantly on that page. For example…

Above picture shows a video posted, a video playing (all you have to do is click the ‘Play’ button) and a picture that others tag you in (in this, the picture becomes a link to other’s page).

Additionally, in Facebook we can comment on our and our friends’ updates (and this includes the quizzes and games announcements).  The updates also include notifications.  To some it becomes very informative, to others it is a bit TOO informative (and hence, annoying).  Of course, that’s up to you.

…ON PHOTO SHARING…

Besides being able to upload your photos, you may as well see others’ and all in the same page, but afterwards you’ll be directed to the respective pages of each album.

For Twitter, the photo sharing features is another site.  You have to sign in into http://twitpic.com/ to be able to upload and access photos.  We can even consider it as another social network because you can interact with others through comments and profiles.  You can even put the pictures on your website, regardless they are yours or not.

… ON FRIENDS, FOLLOWERS OR FOLLOWINGS?…

In Twitter, your connection will be categorized into two: followers and (others that you are) following.  In Facebook, you only have ‘Friends’.  Twitter allows following others without having to need confirmation, and others can follow you, but the ‘followed’ have the option to block the person that follows you. I guess the same goes with Facebook, but since it only has one category that is ‘Friends’, you always need confirmation from the requested part.

… ON EXTRA FEATURES…

Extra feature means one has it and one doesn’t.  So without any intention to be biased (really, honestly), Facebook has some parts that are unavailable in Twitter. For example, online games and quizzes (and also others mentioned before).

…AND THE WINNER OF THE BATTLE IS…

… chosen by me due to its interactivity and most all of the extra features, but mainly because most of my friends are loyal users of it. So, my score?

Facebook scores!

Yes, yes and yes, this is based on my environment and how I use this.  To me, Facebook has been an efficient medium to stay in touch with my old friends and exchange news with them.  Also, not missing an important part, I love the online games after a long day of lectures, tutorials, assignments, projects and readings.  I couldn’t be happier getting away from a hectic world and closer to ‘nature’.

Last but not least, do visit my farm and help clean my tanks! 😉 Till then, take care.

How Wikis and Blogs Affect Writing

It’s an interesting topic isn’t it? Because, I’m a writer (I reckon myself as that ^_^) and even without internet as medium, writing has been a particular and growing interest of mine since I was small.  You know, back then, I would have this log book, usually the A4 size, where I keep all my lyrics and fictions which I kept from everyone and I would draw dresses (and smiling as I did) because it belongs to my little world where I let all might thoughts wander.

I can return to my parent’s home and take the books off my shelf, (yes, you read me right, I have loads of them!) and laugh it off. Those days were amazing, the imagination was limitless. As I grow older, writing is no longer an interest but a must: writing for exams, making notes and doing exercises. We don’t write and publish for fun; it takes time. So… when this whole brand new idea of writing comes out, I beamed.  What am I talking about? Blogs! Hundreds of blogs, thousands of blogs, millions of blogs you can create! Well, that’s if you want to make that much of them; two is enough for me to juggle 😉

Does blog in any way affect my writing? We’re talking about many aspects here: messages, audience, medium, writing style, grammar, vocabulary and the writer himself.  But before we discuss this, we should see what wikis are too.

Wikis are websites where information is combined, like an encyclopedia, and anyone can add up to the pages.  Yep, you just need to sign up and you can be one of the editors.  That’s why some call ‘wiki’ as ‘what I know is…’  Well, does that make it less reliable? This is where we need users to become ‘information literates’ (check out http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/07/06/). For me, most of my time spent looking for definition, wikis come in handy- very convenient. Uh-uh, it is fast, which is the literal meaning taken from Hawaiian language; ‘wiki-wiki’=’fast’… But, it actually helps on the fundamental level.  For details, really, we have to rely on official resources.  In fact, you can’t use wikis as references in assignments, can we… You can go google for further information 😉

Right, so we have gone through the basics of wikis and blogs.  Obviously we’re talking about writing style at present time; the modern, hi-tech, multimedia, world-at-your-fingertips era. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a few issues I’d like to elaborate:

With or without blogs and wikis, writing will always stay.  I remember a quote saying if we want to measure the civilization level of a nation, we measure its writing as it indicates the data keeping.  Huge empires such as Rome is successful due to this.  Therefore, there will always be exchange of information and messages, but nowadays, the writings slant on the messages itself and not the literature.  People are more straight-forward and write only about important things.  We were made to be outspoken and open in writing.

Therefore, writing style definitely has gone through an evolution: message-oriented.  What affects writing may be the tools used.  Writing blogs makes casual writing since writers focus more on what the readers want, but the text is editable therefore at some point writers tend to write carelessly.  Wikis on the other hand becomes a helpful source in assisting writers to understand concepts better, also to gain vast range of vocabulary.

In a nutshell, I believe wikis and blogs affect the writing style of a writer.  Grammatically and lexically, well, honestly I’m a bit technology-dependent, but hey, if it improves the writing, why not?  But that’s a whole different story, that’s computer as tools. Drop by at http://toheartsdesire.blogspot.com/

“A good writer writes good blog, but does a blog makes a good writer?”

What do you think?

My former blog… http://toheartsdesire.blogspot.com/

Olla friends..!!

This is my 2nd Language & ICT blog, so you can go and checkout  my previous one http://toheartsdesire.blogspot.com/ alright.

There has been some discussion on Information Communication Technology fundamentally. Mostly on the basic terms like internet, computer-mediated communication, web browser and of course, our favourite, internet. (Oh yes, you know it’s YOUR fave too…)

Then we English Language Students did an ad remake using our preferred software. Did everything to imitate the real ad, but at the end of the day, there was nothing related at all! haha.

do check ’em out ya… till then ^_^

P/S :  Am wandering on http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/

Hello!!! Come & Join Me! (^_^)v

hi there… ^_^ had just moved in back here, in wordpress, from blogspot… hmm.. looking forward to the enthusiasism of logging in all the necessary things for this blog. haha. join me here~ leave all that you’ve got to say.. you never know what you’d miss if you don’t say what you need to say…… hehe. alright, till then, keep me in your schedule!! TC xoxo