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Comment by jaydigital | Hacker News Reader

Twitter is a niche site, it's not built on appealing to everyone. It's by far my favourite social network, but Facebook provides a more populist service.

Analogy time: I feel like everyone thinks of Facebook and Twitter as Coke vs Pepsi, including Twitter's head honchos. Facebook have this unique combination that is massively successful, Twitter are desperately trying to imitate it.

They should look at it more like Coke and Sprite. Sprite offers a different taste, it's for us guys that like lemonade. Why not crush the lemonade game, rather than gun for Coke? (I know that Sprite is owned by Coca-Cola, the analogy doesn't run forever)

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The difference for me is Facebook is how I communicate with people I know, and Twitter with people I don't. To me they are different things. Of course not for everyone.

I like this analogy: Twitter intrinsically isn't Facebook, and it wouldn't make sense for it to try to be. Having that diversity in the marketplace is a good thing, and soft drinks demonstrate that such situations can absolutely be sustainable.

(Aside: if you make it Coke vs. 7-Up, you'll dodge that last complaint.)

I always considered Twitter to be a subset of Facebook, namely the status update.

> I know that Sprite is owned by Coca-Cola, the analogy doesn't run forever

It's a great analogy and I think it runs that far (that Twitter might be best served by becoming a subsidiary of a larger tech or media company).

A better analogy might be those smaller cola brands with higher caffeine levels. I don't know if you have these in the US; in Germany, there are a lot of them (e.g. Fritz Kola, Afri Cola, Club Mate Cola).

On the outside, it looks similar to Coke/Pepsi (still cola), but it has a vastly different and smaller audience (people who need caffeine, but despise the sugariness of energy drinks). But they stay in their niche, because any attempt to replicate Coke/Pepsi would get them crushed between those two.

maybe the analogy runs further than you think.. there's a lot of natural complements between these products, one is a runaway moneymaking success while the other product is more niche, but they can be sold/advertised together for bigger impact...why shouldn't they be owned by the same company?

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