Facebook, which is rumored to be generating about $1m per week in revenue, is now allowing new users from corporate networks to join their social network (based on email address) in addition to high school and college students. Niall Kennedy was able to register using a microsoft employee email address. I was not able to register using my TechCrunch email – only certain companies are currently supported.
It makes sense for Facebook to continue to look for new markets (this was predicted previously). 85% of college students already use it – growth must come from a different group of users if they are going to be able to attract the $2 billion price tag they’ve been asking for.
Update: Inside Facebook lists the ten companies that are Facebook-enabled: Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EA, Gap, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Pepsi, PWC and Teach for America.
Interesting move, but a good one. This move pits MySpace head on with Facebook. MySpace has evolved into something else entirely with its music labels etc. But facebook is true to its purely social networking aspect lending only minor functionality outside sending messages and commenting on pictures. Interesting to see what develops.
My god, genious move.
The corporate space is a funny one. Companies get touchy about employees just doing what they want freely using their work details. I’m not sure this will catch on as much as they hope.
Yeah, they most likely will get bought near their asking price but what they are doing at the moment seems to be expanding into more of MySpace’s territory just to justify that price.
Did I call this or what…
http://www.zeal...news&id=190
what a wonderfully genious move for them! this will certainly make the 2B much more appropriate.
Do kids want to be able to connect with corporate employees?
Or are users invsible from one network to another?
Ummm… This move was made by Microsoft first. Check out Expo Live where they group people by email into circles of trust. Good old M$. Finding a good idea and expanding on it.
A genius move? College kids don’t want to connect with older folks in this medium – they’ll use LinkedIn for that. Facebook is almost entirely social, a professional atmosphere will ruin it.
I think they should be concerned with increasing their revenue margins on their current audience, since they do such a poor job of it.
I for one think this is a great move by FB assuming the corporate network is separate from the college/highschool crowd. This also brings in another possible revenue source for facebook: job postings. Sooner or later, approved companies will be able to post job offers on the site for a fee, much like monster and craigslist. Facebook will crush Linkedin with this feature.
This makes sense to me. Like it or not, the workplace is a very active social environment. This allows facebook to “grow” with their users. It’s been said before, the exclusive domain-based envirnoment facebook is based on, is a major competative advantage for them. Features, widgets, and “technology” that a lot of social networks are pushing as why they are better than myspace will quickly become a commodity that anyone can/and will offer.
this is a great move
BUT i have noticed with users that have an undergrad and grad account facebook forces 2 profiles…i may be wrong about this but i am pretty sure…this would make it 3 accounts…if facebook can make it so that u have 1 account that shows your undergrad, grad, and work info that would be awesome because the reality is most people switch jobs on average every 2 years
i can see facebook evolving into an identity 2.0 company…which makes a lot of sense…an online identity can only truly be verified through social networks
“i may be wrong about this but i am pretty sure…this would make it 3 accounts…”
This used to be how the Facebook worked but as of very recently there is now the ability to join another network within Facebook as long as you verify an email address with that school/company as well. This gets rid of the problem of creating multiple accoutns per individual.
BrianS,
awesome…yeah i figured it would be pretty idiotic of them to not permit such a thing…ill have to do that…thanks
Good move for them, interested to see how this will work for them.
I think that it’s a great move. All of the folks who work @ corporations want to score on those college kids. Cross-community dating.
http://www.doostang.com has been around for a while, and pretty much does the same thing, except only with the more “exclusive” schools and corporations… A high-end Facebookv2?
“Facebook will crush Linkedin with this feature”
I highly doubt this as Greylock Partners David Sze has invested in both of Facebook and LinkedIn. At some point all of these social networking sites will need to consolidate and LinkedIn as a part of Facebook might make sense but no VC would invest in a competitor of an existing portfolio company.
Hi Michael,
This is very exciting to see come to fruition. I wrote on August 31, 2005 that corporate facebooks offered the potential for serious growth for facebook. In short, a corporate facebook works off the same principles that made facebook so successful in colleges. You can read my complete analysis from August 31 here:
http://www.mino...ook_for_al.html
Here is an excerpt from my post:
“Facebook usage numbers speak for themselves: users love the site. I think some of that love will be lost as people become alums, but it does not have to be: migrating alums into corporate facebooks would leverage the same powerful ideas that have driven facebook’s growth thus far: email/identity confirmation and a community with both cyber and physical boundaries. Companies have that.
“Plus there is a powerful idea within corporate facebooks that university facebooks do not have: there’s no competitive reason why students at one school do not want to share information with students at another school, but that is certainly critical at companies. By playing to that and making a closed corporate facebooks, trust could be fostered and encourage employees to share the necessary information (past projects worked on, expertise, current projects, colleagues at work, etc) for the betterment of the companies. Certainly any person could start offering this service, but no company is better positioned than the facebook to roll this out on a national level.”
Thank you,
Doug Sherrets
http://www.minorityrapport.com
As a current college freshman, I have to say that I don’t like this current trend in facebook. While it may be a good for business in the short run, I think they are running a good chance of alienating the college student that the whole company was built on originally. The entire appeal of facebook as opposed to myspace or friendster was that it was exclusive. College students and alum only. Now with high school and the corporate branches, it feels less and less exclusive and loses its “must have” appeal for college students. Again, obviously a good short term business move, but I do worry about them losing touch with that university student that is still the backbone of the company.
I keep hearing this 85% number – where is the proof?
Mike,
I’ve listed the 10 companies that Facebook has limited the corporate rollout to on the Inside Facebook blog, along with some thoughts on the move…
-Justin
85% of US college students use it. There is land after the oceans too
Hey Mike,
It would be nice if like every other website on the planet, you could separate your comments and your trackback. Thanks!
Being in my late 30’s, I really havent had much use for FaceBook. However, I thought I would register for the highschool portion of the website simply to drive another stake in the horribly web 1.0 company called Classmates.com. Unfortunately, it said I was too old. WTF?
I hope they don’t show student’s profiles to business. That would definitely put people off. I have friends that put all their info there, because they feel secure, if they do allow business to access that info then they’re fried really. Facebook has fallen behind Myspace just because it’s not open to everyone. It used to be that my friends had facebook profiles and spent their time there. Now they have the facebook profile but in the part where it says website it’s all: http://profile.myspace(…)
Facebook is to like make yourself known that you are in the same university, myspace is for hanging out with your friends.
To me this move smacks of desperation
I love Facebook. I’m one of those addicted college students. I’m thrilled with the ability to be part of multiple networks, and can thus view several schools I belong to at once.
The problem is, Facebook is so great because of its exclusivity. Kids (not myself!) post pictures of themselves partying with beers in hand, because they aren’t worried about authority figures seeing them. I don’t want my father joining Facebook and looking at my profile.
While Facebook has good privacy features, it’s getting a little too big for me. I liked when only my classmates could see me, I don’t need my employer reading what I have on my “Wall.” I think that while it is good for Facebook to expand, I think it will, if anything, be viewed negatively by the current college users.
Instead of creating a professional network, I’d rather have all the colleges and universities from other countries covered. I don’t think facebook provides the right feel for a “work” social network and there are several website that already provides that service like the prior comments mention..
Facebook should stay a youth network, and keep adding features. I like the niche that it has in the market..
Umm…why would a workplace need to have a social network online? This is how people get fired.Absolutely agree with the previous post. “smacks of desperation”. Facebook is an incredible idea as it stands. Complicating things will make it less appealing to college kids.
Hmmm…1MM in revenue a week. Making it a run rate of 50MM a year with growth. That makes the valuation of 500MM atleast a little bit rational. As for their move, it is logical and expected. They already had kids putting in their work addresses. My take is that it is a way to keep the network somewhat closed. They can also ban accounts in effective ways that limits spam. Limiting spam is the key to keeping these networks healthy.
LinkedIn should be concerned. As well as visiblepath and spoke. My guess is there will be a number of revenue models they will attack in and surrounding professional work environments. I already know of the perfect acquisition. Mark should give me a call.
This is a classic marketing blunder–line extension for its own sake, mistakenly thinking that your brand is ubiquitous.
They should stick to their core market at Facebook and start a corporate site under a different brand (Workbook?).
Facebook apparently does the school thing really well – I wish they’d open it up to alumni. Classmates.com is currently the largest alumni network (as far as I know) but it’s a pay-for-play service, and it’s a bit of a dinosaur. The market is begging for a new alumni service – Friendster almost did it, MySpace does it but very badly, and Facebook is poised to make a killing in this field.
“I think that it’s a great move. All of the folks who work @ corporations want to score on those college kids. Cross-community dating.”
Exaclty…
Facebook is going to run into some issues trying to police sleazy businessmen from picking up drunken college girls ……Impossible!!!
I agree with the current college students (and users) that have posted (even though I am in my 30s). It seems that Facebook’s valued product is the exclusivity. . . a great thing. And they just killed their product -and instead now seem to be trying to reinvent the wheel of all the other social networks out there that are already successful. I don’t think it’s a genius idea. I wonder why they don’t pay attention to the valuable market that they already dominate…instead of seemingly dropping that market. Why not focus on expanding by keeping the current market in the future as “alumni”? Probably b/c that would take a few years of knuckle-biting patience. But like the others, I feel it seems that there is a Facebook desperation that wants the quick 2.0 buck through perceived “boom growth”.
TOTALLY agree, it’s already creepy enough that potential employers check out students’ facebook profiles, but giving all companies access is a poor choice! stupid dot-coms and their weird plans…
I think this might be a good thing if they control it. Not a single smart college student worried about getting a job will leave there profile active while looking for a Job… employers are smart and they turn to FB to learn more about applicants. If they can keep it as two seperat worlds it will work. Let’s think of this from the business play… People in the business world have much deeper pockets and advertisiers will pay to reach them… Young proffesionals and college students are an advertisers dream because they are choosing the brands they are going to use for life.
regarding the comment above about this new feature being a “linkedin killer,” and direct competition to each other -
sounds like linkedin is still the professional route to go, and the new facebook feature sounds more like the company watercooler. i think it’s a pretty decent move – but wonder how much it will catch on due to most company culture and policies.
Not sure how companies will view this. While each company has it’s own private space on facebook, do companies want their employees gossiping on facebook.
Most large comapnies also have employee portals, directories, and bulletin boards, so I am not sure that this is needed.
I can see this taking off with small companies that don’t have these capabilities.
Yanamandra – I think you’re absolutely right. I’ve posted my thoughts on the subject here. Sort of boils down to:
- Corporations will primarily fear the same stuff college administrators fear – that Facebooking employees will make bad choices that will require disciplinary intervention.
- Corporations will secondarily fear the information employees put into the Facebook. Meeting calendars, person-to-person messages, wall postings, event schedules: On campus, no one really cares to own this data. In the corporate world, this data is clearly owned by the corporation.
Still – this move is solid and makes a lot of sense to me.
They can also expand upwards from the core college audience – in many schools, there is a vibrant graduate and post-grad community as well in which they are just starting to make headways.
I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to give high school students yet another way to post all about themselves…but it is safer then myspace.
http://www.Free...lOfferGuide.com
I liked Facebook because it was College Students only, no childish High School students. Then they added that feature. Now Corporate…I dont like it.
I hope they don’t start allowing the editing of your profile background and such. I hate teenie bopper myspace profiles..
At my previous company, I knew some people who would go to Friendster out of curiosity after they interviewed a “younger” candidate. Some of the stuff that was discovered made them raise their eyebrows…I really think college students who are serious about their future careers should be very concerned about this move by Facebook.
It almost seems like Facebook is saying, “Hey, express yourself…Oops, now it’s going to screw you if you want a job with any of the companies listed here.”
Corporate alumni networking is one of the most underutilized recruiting tools around. LinkedIn already has LinkedIn for groups and there are many organic Yahoo groups that have sprung up. It will be interesting to see how the facebook community will morph as companies are added.
My company, YorZ, already offers corporate alumni groups for scores of companies as well as a way to connect and recruit within each. We are adding features all the time. You can check it out at: http://groups.y...psDirectory.htm
I think you are easily going to see grumbles from the college crowd on this move. The question is, will they drastically change their visiting behavior on the site? Probably not.
However I think this dangerously enters a territory that I have mentioned before where the more access corporations get to students facebook profiles, the more it could affect things such as hiring…something that obviously shouldn’t be happening.
More about that here:
http://www.bria...lfour.com/?p=25
-Brian
Two important points:
1) I’ve a read a few times now that with 85% penetration in universities, Facebook needs to figure out other ways to maintain its growth. I am not so sure I agree with this. You can register for facebook with an alumni account (as I have). With that in mind, you have a new influx of freshman every year (on the range of 2 million per year) AND you dont loose the 2 million or so outgoing seniors. So while its true the speed of growth levels off, there is still plenty of room for the # of new users to grow.
2) One issue that might hinder corporate adoption: the corporate firewall. Now I am sure many companies allows their employees full access to sites, but many large players don’t I, for one, cannot access facebook from work.
Ben, even though you will be getting ” new influx of freshman every year,” the percentage increase will not be the same as the total number of users goes up.
soon, facebook will take over everything, perhaps a merger of facebook and google??
I think facebook is selling out. What made it special was that it was exclusive and somewhat safe compared to myspace and other ones. I already dont like the fact that high schoolers now have access. I think it will lose a lot of college students by expanding but if it catches on in the business world, I guess it would be worth it for facebook. Its all about the $$$ anyway