Twitter Acquires Tweetdeck, So What Now Facebook?

Twitter finally acquired a decent user interface by buying TweetDeck today, so should Facebook be scared?

The three-year-old, London-based company has been in negotiations for months now and the deal is officially finished, according to TweetDeck.

We've grown from one team member and a single user, to a team of fifteen and a user-base of millions. The reason for this growth is simple - our unwavering focus on providing high-quality tools and services for the Twitter-centric power-user. This has always been our core audience - the most active, influential and valuable users of Twitter and social media in general. Quality over quantity.

It is precisely for this reason that Twitter has acquired TweetDeck. The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients. And by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs "more power".

But the reality is that although TweetDeck and Twitter may have millions of users, they don't approach the nearly 600 million global users on Facebook (others also point out that Twitter's 165 million users often have multiple accounts, so sheer numbers don't necessarily mean unique members.)

However, Twitter excels in viral marketing, the quick sell and just as quick communications. Facebook, because of its general and huge population, is a much harder nut to crack open for businesses. And while Facebook has detractors because of their ever-changing privacy policies, at least the social network can create a decent user interface. Twitter had to buy one rather than create one, which makes us think they lack the programming and brain power to do much of the heavy lifting on its own.

Facebook also kills Twitter on dependability. The Twitter "Fail Whale" is legendary, and say what you will about Facebook, it rarely just ceases to work.