Why Twitter Will Live and Facebook Will Die

twitter-new-bird-200.jpg
Source: Twitter.com

As is the often the case, the words of Bruce Springsteen ring apropos:

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back

To make Facebook attractive, the company must put its makeup on and fix its hair up pretty. Twitter doesn’t have to bother with that mess. Jeans, white t-shirt, a pair of Chuck Taylor’s, pony tail, no makeup, and it’s good to go.

I’m long the stock, but I expect Facebook to die. Eventually, it will go the way of MySpace. It will come back incarnated as something else. That’s exactly what happened to the newspaper. Sans a few exceptions, the newspaper died and came back as Twitter.

You might not know it yet or use it as such, but Twitter is the modern day version of the newspaper. And it will sustain.

I keep my smartphone next to my bed. When I wake up in the middle of the night and, most definitely, when I wake up in the morning, I spend a minimum of five to 10 minutes at a time on Twitter. Then, I am on it all day.

There’s no better way to find out fast what, if anything, is happening in the world, from your backyard to the other side of the Earth. If you want to go deeper, now or later, Twitter facilitates the process nicely via its mobile and desktop platforms, as well as extensions such as TweetDeck.

As with any other service of its type, Twitter also entertains. And, if you choose to accept the opportunity, Twitter can help you act in your own self-promoting interest.

Twitter will never die. It doesn’t have to evolve — cosmetically, stylistically, etc. — as much as Facebook does because the content that fuels Twitter always changes. In fact, it can and usually does change in an instant.

You can do everything on Twitter that you do on Facebook, plus stuff that’s actually useful. And there’s much less mindless minutia to wade through.

That’s because the people you can follow on Twitter, the contributions they make, and the content that floats to the top is almost always much more interesting than your “friends’” attempts at creating the perfect construction of their lives.

Pick an interest. Choose a hobby. Think of your passions. Look up your line of work. Follow the right people. Interact appropriately. Twitter adds to your quality and experience of life in myriad aspects.

Next to LinkedIn, there’s not a more utilitarian social media site than Twitter. But, unless you’re unemployed or otherwise on the hunt for a job or some other specific networking activity, you ultimately use LinkedIn the way you use Facebook. To collect connections. To reunite with blasts from the past.

Twitter’s 140-character limit stokes its quality and appeal. It allows the most clever folks to break through. In fact, the worst thing that happened to Twitter is that app called “TwitLonger.”

You can use TwitLonger if you feel the need to go beyond 140 characters. That turns Twitter into something closer to Facebook. It dumbs it down.

Facebook is a sustainable fad. In other words, it serves a purpose. It has a much brighter future than its bandwagon-jumping critics think. But, it will never be in Twitter’s league in any capacity, from being useful to making the smooth transition to an initial public offering, assuming Apple doesn’t buy Twitter before it goes public.

When I claim Facebook will die, I’m talking five, 10, 15, maybe 20 years from now. In our world, that’s an eternity. Twitter, meantime, is everything the television news networks wish they could be — instant, relevant, and used heavily by a relatively young audience.

If Twitter cannot monetize that, it needs to immediately start a search, on LinkedIn, for better salespeople.

—By TheStreet.com Contributor Rocco Pendola

Additional News: What Facebook’s New Apple App Means for Its Business

Additional Views: Will Sirius XM Go Extinct?: Pendola

______________________________

CNBC Data Pages:

______________________________
Disclosures:

TheStreet’s editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters, and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks. At the time of publication, Rocco Pendola was long FB.

Disclaimer