When people think about ranking social networks, it"s usually Facebook #1 and Twitter #2. Well, there"s a new #2 in town and that"s Instagram. With 300 million monthly active users it recently supplanted and surpassed Twitter"s 284 million active user base.
Twitter was a compelling solution to a problem few understood. I"m not a big Twitter user by any means, but I"ve kept close tabs on it ever since its debut on SXSW, and my own understanding of Twitter has evolved a lot over the years.
Like most, I didn"t get Twitter the first time. It felt like a feature Facebook already had in status updates. Moreover, did I really want to know that people were doing on a real-time basis? Having lunch or going to the gym or feeling sad?
I soon realized it was a precise way of getting updates of only the people you"re interested in, which is (was) different to Facebook"s algorithmic approach of getting updates from all your friends -- who you may not actually be interested in following in real time. That was my first take on Twitter"s purpose.
Read: Twitter"s evolution, and why Instagram is better
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