Yup, I’m back on Twitter. After toying with facebook for a few months, I’ve started tweeting again. Honestly, I never liked facebook’s design but when I was away from home, its utility was just brilliant. There’s no better way than facebook for connecting with friends, family and relatives in distant places. I’m no longer in Singapore. I’m back home now. So the reason behind my facebooking doesn’t exist anymore. So I’m back on twitter and I’m loving it. I’m very ably supported by iPhone and MacBook. Both have great twitter apps that will get you addicted to twitter. They make tweeting so easy that there’s no reason for you not to tweet.

So why am I on Twitter and why has it now taken over my facebook time? Because twitter is exactly what I want. Some of us have not quite understood the difference between facebook and twitter. Since both these concepts come under the umbrella of ‘social networking’, some think of these as Pepsi and Coke. Facebook and Twitter are totally different. And it’s best explained by this interesting quote ‘Facebook is for finding old friends and Twitter is for making new ones’. It can’t be more correct than this. Facebook is like your house. Twitter is like the world.

Facebook is very closed and appears very conservative. In facebook, you operate within a small village of friends and friends of friends that you have allowed yourselves to interact with. Twitter is very open and is like this world – very big and full of strangers some of whom could hit a chord with you from nowhere. Also Facebook is very comprehensive and their intention to expand the usage of Facebook means they’ve got everything there – videos, pictures, mail, chat etc. In Twitter, all you get to do is just a text tweet of maximum 140 characters. While Twitter might sound like lacking in features, the twitter-lovers like exactly that. Twitter is simple, uncluttered, instant and more fun. Getting my messages within 140 characters is an interesting challenge. I love it. What I also love about Twitter is knowing what people are talking about, not just here, across the world. Tweet search and ‘trend-tracking’could be a great pasttime too.

I caught on to social networking pretty late. If not for the brilliant apps on my HTC and iPhone 4, I probably would never have. These lovely apps do a big service to Facebook and twitter by making the user experience so much better than it is on the full website. So, thanks to iPhone 4, I’ll be on these until I get bored of them. I’ll continue to use Facebook but intend spend most of my facebook time on twitter. So, now trending: vjkrgn on twitter.