Twitter Envy Is Not Just a Facebook Problem

Social networking sites go back and forth in war for users

By SAJID FAROOQ
Updated 11:30 AM PDT, Thu, Sep 17, 2009

Anything Facebook can do, Twitter can do better. Or at least it will try.

In the ongoing war of what social networking site is better, Twitter developers are following Facebook's lead and introducing voice chat to the microblogging site.

Jajah Inc. said it is beta testing the service that would allow Twitter users to have two minute voice conversations with each other without ever exchanging a phone number.

This just days after a Facebook developer introduced a similar feature and a week after Facebook Lite went live.

The new simpler lite version of the Palo Alto-based social networking site looks eerily similar, in ways, to Twitter with its stream of status updates

“Twitter envy: Facebook has it, absolutely,” Jeremiah Owyang, a social media consultant at the Altimeter Group told the New York Times. “Facebook absolutely recognizes that Twitter is a threat, and they’re doing what they can to replicate the features before Twitter gets mainstream adoption.”

But when it comes to money, Facebook is beating Twitter to the announcements front. Facebook told the world Tuesday it was cashflow positive and making money.

Not to be outdone, Twitter announced today it raised another $50 million in funding and is now valued at $1 billion. Take that Facebook.

First Published: Sep 17, 2009 11:04 AM PDT on NBC Bay Area

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