Twitter and Facebook are two of the biggest social networks nowadays. Let’s compare them and discuss their main features.

Twitter is a very simple social network, its functions are basic and in particular it lacks in one Facebook is good at: photo sharing. Facebook offers the creation of an unlimited number of albums containing an unlimited number of photos each: even better than other pure photo-storage sites. Anyway, Twitter can overcome this lack of functions by being implemented with other fellow web ups. Many sites offer buttons to share images and links on Twitter themselves.

Quite every site in the web has recognized the same importance to both Twitter and Facebook, offering a quick share button for both of them (together with other famous services like Google+ of Flikr).

Facebook has surely more functions (photo and video sharing, instant messaging, various types of chats, possibility to update your state with an unlimited number of characters/links/photos, games and many others). But this overload of functions makes it extremely messy, difficult to use for new users and sometimes really puzzling. It is subjected to many frequent updates (especially for mobile devices) that force the user to regularly check new functions and learn how to use them. There has also been a time of frequent modification of privacy functions, that has lead many users in despair.

From this point of view, Twitter is a simple mean for the most basic function: communication. Although it only allows a definite (and maybe small) number of characters per message, it doesn’t cause many difficulties, and users get simply used to this limit (it is just like writing an sms).

In addition, Facebook focuses a lot on advertising. Everywhere on the site can be found a considerable amount of banners and spam. Many pages also use to promote each other in order to get more “likes”. Getting “likes” has become like some sort of virus, and people don’t miss opportunities to ask for them in other sites, too (I have frequently seen messages like “Hey, I like your photo! Now come and like my Fb page!” in random blogs or questions like “Can you like my page I will like your???” on Yahoo!Answers).

Moreover, spam and function overload tend to slow down the site, making it harder to browse for some machines. For example, my computer (that can easily run graphic programs or several application at the same time) can not support photo upload on Facebook: it simply crashes in the middle of the process, just like my brother’s one.

Twitter is simpler, neater and is easily accessible from various devices (mobile or not) and means (it can be updated by sms, email or the site itself). It also offers a tag function and a search bar (just like a browser) to find the last twits about a certain topic, allowing to gain information in real life about quite anything.

Facebook looks like a photo album, merged with a dating site, a gaming platform and a market.
Twitter is just a communication mean. Simple and clear.