Facebook Acquires FriendFeed, Trouble for Twitter?

Facebook shook the social media sphere yesterday in acquiring FriendFeed. How will this acquisition change social media? For one, Twitter might see an increase in competition. From the get go, Twitter’s upper hand has been its real-time search and update functions. Although some have argued that Facebook and Twitter cannot be compared, the acquisition of FriendFeed surely brings up the question of whether or not Facebook is trying to eliminate Twitter from its path.

According to Mashable, “[o]f the many things FriendFeed has done well, search is at the forefront. Their real-time search engine is much stronger than Twitter’s in terms of interface and usability: it simply doesn’t have nearly the volume of content to be as valuable as Twitter search. However, that problem is immediately solved if you plug content from Facebook’s 250+ million members into it”. The acquisition then begins to make more and more sense with the combination of Facebook’s mass audience and FriendFeed’s superior search. While this might not deter current Twitter users from using the site, it might be harder to gain new users who might opt for Facebook on that they will eventually serve the same purpose.

How will the FriendFeed acquisition affect Twitter?