I'd Like to Buy the World a Twitter

Rumors are flying that Facebook is developing a Twitter app, another one of those boxes on your wall, that would, well, let you use Twitter within Facebook. This would keep Facebook users on the site and let the less tech-savvy explore Twitter while not having to leave their familiar Facebook home. I have a feeling this large portion of the Facebook demographic would be interested in Twitter if they tried it but likely can't be bothered to go figure out how it works or jump into a new service where there's no one they know. It may not bring over the long-time power users of Twitter however, as it remains to be seen how feature rich the app is or even what it looks like. Without the features of desktop clients such as Seesmic Desktop to parse my Twitter information, I wouldn't be terribly interested in switching over to this app.

As much as I abhor Facebook's misguided contortions in its attempt to block the rise of Twitter, I have to admit this is a smart move to co-opt the service's users and it would be a win-win situation for both services. It would keep Facebook users on Facebook and improve the ability of the service to keep users in touch with their friends, its core value. At the same time it would bring Twitter to the attention of Facebook's 250 million users.