Posted on September 10, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Why Facebook @ tagging / mentions won't affect Twitter's growth or will it? Let the tweets decide

The Facebook vs Twitter war just kicked into high gear today as Facebook launched a rocket announcing that soon you’ll be able to “Tag Friends in Your Status and Posts” with a simple notion of the @ sign. Ohhhh, Awww. The initial announcement was made here: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=109765592130

Three of the top social media/tech blogs, Mashable (2), TechCrunch and Read Write Web already have a post talking about the move. Each with a different post title leaning toward how Facebook’s friends tagging feature is related to Twitter.

Mashable Post Title

TechCrunch Post Title

Read Write Web Post Title

Personally I really think it’s to early to start saying the death is near for Twitter or say this move will cause people to leave Twitter or say brands will leave Twitter for Facebook. Slow down folks!  The real question is what I think the Read Write Web post tries to discuss is how the @ tagging will affect Facebook users. Who knows it could back-fire especially if it’s not a feature you could turn on or off in your users settings; you never know.  Facebook users may not like it when spammers and brands mentions their name in a lurking move to get their attention on Facebook.  I did read how it will only work for if you friends with a person but still, only time will tell.

Either way the move by Facebook started an instant debate on Twitter about how Facebook mentions may start the downward growth spiral of Twitter. Here are a few of the discussions.

@kbodnar32 @bmcd67 Bet me! Twitter won’t top 25m users. 30 max, before peeking roughly 8 months from now. F’book will be 10x that.

BREAKING: Facebook to launch @replies in Status Updates. http://bit.ly/4a4KV8 Further proof that F’book is slowly killing Twitter

@jtobin so what if twitter tops out at 30 million users it can most likely be profitable at that level, surely won’t die.

@jtobin no you are wrong. they are two different platforms used in two differently ways. Both can exist happily.

@eyevariety But I also think there’s value in everyone embracing conventions. Just wonder if Twitter has IP protection around the use of @

@eyevariety See it as adding tags to status updates with an easy interface. Using @ is unoriginal, but it’s only in writing UI, not display

Plus if people can only mention you if you have approved them as a friend, it eliminates the random @ spam we get on Twitter.

@jefftippett a great feature but not something that will kill twitter- FB is so closed.

@jtobin I guess think of Twitter as new form of media and that that kind of communication eventually will be owned by everyone- like email

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Do you think Facebook mentions will hurt the growth of Twitter?  Which tweet from above do you agree with the most?