FaceBook couldn’t buy Twitter, but now you can get your FaceBook friends’ statuses right alongside Twitter updates through some of the apps that work with both. FaceBook Connect is one of the smartest things FaceBook has ever done.

Tweetdeck introduced their new beta allowing you to see your FaceBook friends’ updates and respond to them in FaceBook chat or re-tweet them right to Twitter. (download)

Seesmic launched their “Seesmic for FaceBook” (also a beta) desktop app which lets you keep track of your friends’ FaceBook statuses on your desktop too. (download). I’m not clear yet why it’s a stand-alone app rather than integrating it into the already hugely popular Twhirl, but knowing the Seesmic team there is more to come soon.

Honestly I’m not sure how I feel about this. FaceBook just went through some major changes that may make it a little more user-friendly, but I still think of Twitter and FaceBook as two very different networks, and I use them differently.

Facebook is where I have more casual discussions, share pictures and stories with my friends and co-workers. It’s where I follow causes and groups I’m interested in and get more involved through their fan pages and groups.

Twitter is where most of my energy goes and it’s where I interact with clients as well as friends, and it’s a major information resource to boot.

Bottom line, if you put anything on-line it becomes public pretty fast, even if you keep your updates private. With this new option to see my friends’ status messages it’s easier for me to share their doings with the world, but is that what THEY want? If people think they’re posting just for their friends and it ends up re-tweeted to Twitter are they going to be OK with that?

Time will tell if all this makes FaceBook more accessible. I use it so little now that seeing FaceBook updates suddenly in TweetDeck may just inspire me to use FaceBook more. With all the changes they are going through there may be hope yet that FaceBook gets beyond a place where people collect Easter eggs, send each other hugs and beers and chase each other in vampire games.
Then again, some people signed up just for that, and I wonder how these changes will impact them?