Twitter grows up a little more

So Facebook has recently included a few features from Twitter, and Google+ has some of Facebook's features; and now Twitter looks more like Facebook. It's the social media wars, round 37 - or so.

Last week Twitter updated its website (website? Do people still use them in this age of the app?) to make it more "brand friendly" and easier to connect to.

Twitter has reorganised itself to "simplify" how users interact with it - it seems like everyone is reading Steve Jobs' biography and has adopted his mantra, which, if truth be told, is not necessarily a bad thing.

These are interesting times for social networks as they become more central to the digital world we live in. There was a time when, broadly speaking, you could describe Facebook as a personal hang-out, Twitter as an "information" network and, most recently, Google+ as the geek's playground.

But they are blending all their features and crossovers are increasing as their cultures merge and expand. This is partly organic and partly to fight rivals for the last remaining commodity: our attention.

There's no doubt that social media are the new default means of communication. A 2008 statistic said one in eight couples married in the US met through a social network. After three years and hundreds of millions more users, the figure must be much higher.

So, it is possible to find love through social media, and even, if you're lucky, get a second chance.

Professionally, Twitter and Facebook have become essential news and information sources. Facebook has become the biggest driver of traffic to news websites (not surprisingly, given its 800million user base) and is building online communities in a way that is both interesting and not a little scary for old-style, real-world concepts of what a community is.

Renowned internet consultant Josh Spear said at the Tech4Africa conference earlier this year "if something is important, it shows up in my Twitter stream".

That's true, and it's a source of serendipitous new discoveries too - like Nando's dictator ad or the physics that enables great white sharks to leap out of the ocean to attack seals.

Spear said of himself: "I've become an air-traffic controller of all my information".

It's a great phrase to describe this new information-rich world.

Readers of this column will know that I am more a fan of Twitter than Facebook, in part because Twitter is simpler. Facebook's ever-changing privacy policy is a bit like trying to understand bank fees or the average cellphone contract structure.

Twitter, which now has 100million users who send about 200million tweets a day, is open and simple. Unless you "protect" your tweets, they can be viewed by anyone. I share only information that I am happy for everyone to see.

I like Twitter's asynchronous nature - you can be followed by someone but you don't have to follow them back.

It allows me to regulate my own information flow.

I think of it as an intelligent RSS feed: news and links to topics I am interested in sorted by real, intelligent people.

There were two crucial conferences this past week. One to save the euro and one to save the planet. I (mostly) followed the news of both on Twitter (and The Guardian's superb iPhone app).

Interestingly, Twitter's characteristic 140-character message length was designed so that it could be sent as an SMS.

Text messages remain the most popular means of messaging, with an estimated 8trillion sent this year alone.

Thursday marked the 19th anniversary of the first SMS sent. Fittingly, for this time of year, it read "Merry Christmas".

• Shapshak is the editor of Stuff magazine