Facebook insiders are reporting that a beta version of the site’s “publisher” allows users to choose whether anyone on the Web can view their status updates. Can you say “Twitter?”

What would be interesting would be to see Facebook separate its events stream from the rest of the site, essentially creating a Twitter clone. It could then focus on letting developers build services that piggyback on top–targeting one of Twitter’s strengths. 

Regardless of how aggressive it plans to be, I’ve been continually impressed by Facebook’s ability to evolve itself to remain relevant. It went from being a static social networking site that offered basic messaging capabilities to a site that is focused on actions, events, and mobility. Friendster and MySpace were too late to adapt, and lost their luster.

Earlier this month, Facebook made user names available to its users as a replacement for the random string of numbers that used to represent people. These are all small steps in the right direction that preserve what I like about Facebook while selectively adding what’s best about Twitter.

 
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