Compare and contrast two social media websites, which is Facebook and Essay

Compare and contrast two social media websites, which is Facebook and Twitter, in terms of use and functions provided - Essay Example While the topic is suitable for an in-depth scientific research that involves primary data collection and study of public opinion through surveys and interviews, the scope of research of this paper is limited to the information available online. Comparison and contrast is based on the facts reported by various sources online. The procedure followed for this comparison and contrast was online research. Websites used as sources contained reliable information mostly from published papers and peer reviewed sources. Finding the required information posed the challenge of reading a lot of articles. The reported sources were verified to confirm that the information came from the sources as mentioned. The features of Facebook include but are not limited to friends, news feed, games, apps, ads, likes, text messages, live chat, photos, videos, gifts, status, links, polls, and separate pages for advertisements. The features of Twitter include tweeting, retweeting, following people, photos, videos, links, and direct messaging. Facebook’s users are over 1.28 billion in number (Diffen n.d.). Twitter’s users are over 500 million in number (Diffen n.d.). According to Tappin (2014), the number of active users on Facebook is 1.23 billion whereas the number of active users on Twitter is 232 million. The most common use of Facebook is to update the users on what is happening around them and in others’ lives. The most common use of Twitter is to speed up what is happening, â€Å"often becoming a source in and of itself† (DeMers 2013). Diversity of features matters a lot in the success of a social media website. People want everything on the same platform. They do not like switching from one site to another to use different functions. Diverse and large range of features is what makes Facebook more popular than Twitter. The number of users a social media website has tells