Facebook may be used for professional networking (particularly in Silicon Valley), but it sure isn’t set up to be. People’s profiles are all about their dating status, pictures, videos and other very personal information. It’s perfect for college dorm networking, but not so much for job or business development hunting.
LinkedIn, by contrast, is set up perfectly to network. You can see your extended network many levels deep, so you can quickly find out if you are connected to a person even with a few degrees of separation. With Facebook, you can go to your friends’ profiles and see who they are friends with, but you can’t go deeper into the social graph than that.
But that’s changing, fast. First, we noted that Facebook is creating friend grouping last month. By specifying certain friends as professional contacts, a whole different set of content can be shown to them (sans the dating status and pictures of you getting drunk). Or as Nick O’Neil puts it, Facebook may be growing up.
And now Facebook is quietly making changes to their data structure to allow for the concept of “networking.” Currently on Facebook, users can say they are looking for friendship, dating, a relationship, random play or “whatever I can get.” But networking was recently added as a desired relationship type to the API (note that it is not yet an option on Facebook itself yet).
This is newly added, according to people who are familiar with the API. It’s so new it hasn’t yet been added to the Wiki that documents the API. This means that the official API documentation is ahead of the Wiki documentation for the same functionality (the wiki was last updated two weeks ago by Facebook engineers). And it means Facebook is likely preparing to launch this new feature but isn’t quite ready yet.
Once launched, Facebook (or third party developers) could add a lot of functionality around networking. Applications could be developed that show a social graph for users who’ve said they want to network that goes much deeper than one level of friends. You could, for example, use Facebook’s people search (which is now public) to not only find people, but see exactly how you are connected to them. In effect, Facebook could build a LinkedIn-type networking application within the overall Facebook network. And that could be very bad for LinkedIn in the long run.
That’s good news. I haven’t found FB very helpful for discovering friends or shared connections, and the “connections” are all oriented around dating/flirting/hooking up. Linked in has a much better model for professionals. (duh)
BTW, has anyone else noticed google reader mobile being down? It seems to have been dead for at least 2 hours. I hope they get it fixed soon!
http://www.goog.../reader/m/view/
You spelled videos wrong.
Facebook could, Facebook might……but sober credibility is key.
Right now, you have to give Linkedin credit for keeping professional contacts useful, and fostering a controlled environment.
One question I had was: why I am paying Linkedin? I still dont understand what I upgraded to when I gave them my credit card!
One day I was using it for free, and for some reason, a force got hold of me and said, ‘pay them 20 dollars a month’.
why did I do this? At any rate it’s a useful service and for a freelance analyst like myself, a good way to prospect and keep in touch with client’s and future clients.
I can’t see Facebook brining this kind of businesslike sobriety to the same constituency, not soon, anyway. Linkedin has the stink of stability, Facebook has a stain of buzz.
But there are many potential applications for Facebook style applications for serious support services:
http://bizcast....es-in-tech.html
Good points Mike – and good point about SV vs. elsewhere. I would be a bit nervous about creating different sets of content for different people – esp. since they might just wind up seeing it.
The NYT had a good interview with the linkedin ceo last week:
http://bits.blo...ed-sort-of-way/
And my comments on the interview:
http://www.cent...n-nye-interview
Good points Mike – and good point about SV vs. elsewhere. I would be a bit nervous about creating different sets of content for different people – esp. since they might just wind up seeing it.
The NYT had a good interview with the linkedin ceo last week:
http://bits.blo...ed-sort-of-way/
my thoughts are on my name.
“sans” ?
Ce mot pas Anglais, non?
There is NO WAY that facebook could take on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is about being open, public, and like a “universal” business card.
People post their linkedin profiles on their blog etc.
Facebook is very limited, and closed. Not somewhere you would want to drive traffic to, especially business clients or associates.
I’m calling this one a fanboy rumor…
I think there’s a massive difference in branding. A lot of professionals use LinkedIn or have LinkedIn profiles. Many of them have a network too – via being asked to join others’ – even if they don’t use it. This is seen as okay.
Meanwhile Facebook is a bunch of kids messing around – and many professionals don’t want to be associated with that. Almost as bad as having a MySpace.
If I were LinkedIn I would worry about increasing the value of joining for professionals, not competition from Facebook.
@5 The Business of Software
Oui, “sans” est aussi un mot anglais, avec le meme sens mais prononciation different. Il rime avec le mot anglais “cans”.
Facebook will make a run at LinkedIn, but won’t be successful as most professional I know of think of FaceBook as an improved MySpace (mostly for college kids)…and not a professional business networking site. FaceBook is going to have to redefine it’s self for a new audience…the danger is that is you can’t be everything to everyone, so Facebook risks alienating it’s original audience of college students.
You thought I could go a day without mentioning Facebook? Ppffft!
Facebook won’t be able to replace linkedin without a serious overhaul. To have a professional community succeed there needs to be a general purpose.
Linkedin has the purpose of networking
Facebook has the purpose of messaging and sharing photos etc…
What needs to happen is for there to be a business community focused around helping other business community members, such as: http://answers.nobosh.com/
http://answers.nobosh.com/
maybe one of you app developers will buy my domain now.
two comments:
1) to paraphrase Scott Mc Nealy: [on facebook] you have no privacy, get over it! the other day, I decided to un-select the attribute “in a relationship” in my profile, FB broadcast my name with a broken heart in all my friends’ newfeeds! so you’re right Michael, not so great for job or business development hunting.
And adding a group feature will hardly change that – there’s an inherent lack of confidence in where the data will be shown in FB
2) it’s not a winner takes all battle: these days everyone uses more than one email, more than one social network, more than one IM, etc So LinkedIn can remain very successful while FB enters this market. Actually, you could argue that FB will further educate the market and help LinkedIn’s success. That would be my bet.
Although, i am personally quite excited about their push for the networking side of things – there are apps which help with networking There’s an awesome app i’ve been using since it first launched called KnowledgeBook – which essentially connect users by what they know. It’s been a fantastic way for me to connect to people who have skills & knowledge i need, and vice-versa.
I suspect FaceBook will wish it accepted one of those billion dollar offers. Can’t say I find LinkedIn useful either.
MS to “Invest” in FaceBook … Buying 5% … hehehe
My motto has always been:
“If ya can’t beat ‘em, sabotage ‘em”
We have pulled this one a hundred times before, everyone knows it, but they just can’t resist all of that beautiful CASH!
Every last MS executive has a FaceBook Profile, we like FaceBook, we are impressed by FaceBook, but we don’t own FaceBook!
Why does FaceBook threaten us you ask?
The answer is very simple: we have spent billions over the years convincing people that MS technologies are the best; when a FaceBook, YouTube, Gaggle, …. comes along and shows us up, people’s preception of us changes. This is not acceptable.
SOLUTION:
FaceBook must be “Microsoft’d”!
1. The first step being a friendly investment,
2. … a seat on the board (make stupid votes/suggestions)
3. Closer “integration” with our OS, less with others.
4. Taking credit for fixing bugs created by the integration
5. FaceBook eventually works as well as the rest of our software
Problem solved!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Facebook should just acquire LinkedIn. Reid Hoffman + Mark Z would be a cool team.
Dan
http://www.acke...angreenberg.com
Scoble wrote about a Facebook app that lets users import their LinkedIn profiles and recommendations: http://scobleiz...-facebook-apps/
3rd party developers are already trying to make Facebook a Linkedin-killer. I’m sure Facebook will help them do that with the API…
I think this is moving in the right direction. The more people working together to move such large projects along is just what is needed. Great to see the progress.
Facebook will not compete with Linkedin. It is an inside deal that was established by the board of directors. Why? Facebook and Linkedin have the same investors and they have agreed to perfect their own model instead of distrupting Linkedin’s revenue. Remember although Linkedin is not as popular as FB, Linkedin generates more revenue than FB and the investors want that to continue. Why would they want Facebook (with no revenue) destroy another company which is generating substantial revenue when they are both invested by the same investor.
Chris- you must be from California, because the shit we get here doesn’t get us anywhere near that high.
I just signed up for facebook to see what the buzz was about (and so I can see the apps people link to in their posts) and man, do they have some settings/profiles/privacy ‘things’ to adjust. Not sure why people find this so compelling. I switched everything I could to private, but they still have issues making it easy to keep most details private. It is a shit heap compared to linkedin for professionals. And anyone that meets their dating propects online, well, we used to call them geeks. I think that is still accurate.
I heart facebook. Whatever they touch turns to gold. They will surpass Google any day now.
Tom,
I had the same approach as you, and I have signed up for LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace. I have been on LinkedIn for years, since this is the tool of choice for most professionals. However, since Facebook has all of the hype and talk, I decided to sign up and try it out… I think it is a simplified interface, but I like the ability to “plug and play” other applications such as iLike, Dogbook, Cities I’ve visited, etc. However, I find this more of a friend, social networking tool as opposed to a career promoting networking tool. And MySpace is similar to Facebook, only a little more difficult to navigate. I think suggesting Facebook buy LinkedIN, or maybe even better, LinkedIn buying Facebook could be a strong partnership.
-Angelina
http://www.blimptv.net
I actually believe both apps have a place. Its also my belief that certain applications will continue to have a place if they are niche and continue to be niche. But, there is a drive to combine everything into one space, which makes sense from time resource point. There are also aggregators that start to facilitate this. Interesting times to see which strategy wins.
From our point http://www.edocr.com, we want to be niche – but at the same time facilitating interconnectivity.
Amen! I hope either (a) Facebook eats LinkedIn for lunch (b) LinkedIn becomes a real social network i want to spend time on. I have found I am actually interacting with Facebook alot lately with all the apps. At the same time, I’m out on LinkedIn prospecting for Sales Engineers to hire here at Splunk. I’d really like to do all of that on one network. Facebook, please add a decent “professional” part of my profile, and then let me layer personal and professional altogether… hooo-rah!
Does anyone find professional networking on Linked in (or soon to be Facebook) a useful and valuable service? Not me. I find them useful for keeping your contacts in one place, but I have other tools that do that better.
I find the whole concept of professional networking to be irritating and useless. To forward requests from salespeople of recruiters to my contacts does me no good. And to forward requests deeper in any network is a silly – to have 3-4 requests for approval. So what’s in it for me? I don’t get leads out of these services.
So I don’t get the hype. Yeah I get Linked does OK because they are growing their user base, but time will tell if there is anything there more than an advertising based rolodex.
At the end of the day, I don’t use my rolodex all that much and don’t see much value in these services.
There are a couple of comments above making snide comments along the lines of Facebook being ‘Mainly college kids’ or ‘kids messing around’. Perhaps there is a bit of a generational gap here? If people have embarked upon their professional lives as Facebook users – and so long as Facebook can add a few features to facilitate networking / business / etc – why would they switch to LinkedIn? Some of Facebook’s apps already make it more valuable from a business perspective than LinkedIn.
IMHO Facebook is best placed to command the business, social networking space for professionals under 30. I wouldn’t mind betting that as it gathers greater mass in the business space, it’ll also create in-roads amongst those who today make the ‘mainly college kids’ type comments.
Linkedin is dead…its a piece of s&!t. Suckoya ruined it, just like they ruined Plaxo.
Suckoya is the best fund, but they are not friendly to founders. Hence they periodic F *)!ups.
Reed Hoofman does okay any becasue he is in Facebook.
Michael, let me ask you something…….are you married?
Kisses!
When all the college kids grow up they’ve used Facebook for 2+ years and will be likely to keep doing it – if Facebook can meet their demand for professional networking.
But then again. I’m sure something new will be at hype when they graduate. We’re not exactly the most devout users are we – over time that is. Lots of fanboys though.
Linkedin is the most buggy, poorly run Internet site in the history of the Internet. Custoemr service is non-exists, the data is horrible and the company needs new leadership that has a clue about data models and user experience.
Facebook won’t kill LinkedIn. Either LinkedIn will kill LinkedIn (by not staying current and by not responding to members’ needs), or something else will. But this business-only site will remain attractive for millions of business-only professionals who don’t want to put up profile photos, fear divulging too much personal information, and have no clue what a poke is, why you’d poke someone, or how to respond to poking.
maybe rooms could be created in the dashboard to meet specific minded people.
This is a good move by FB. If thy can categorize privacy settings by Prof, Pers, Friends,etc(eg tabs) they may be on to something.
And for those worried about data leaking to other areas why not just open a new account that’s for business only? That way you can enjoy the security while taking advantage of all the FB apps being created like the plethora of plugins available for FF.
In terms of Linkedin, I think theyre over-rated and their user experience/features suck. Xing, a more recent entrant popular in Europe, blows the doors off Linkedin.
Since I use both sites and do a great deal of networking online, I’m OK with seeing how users decide to integrate the personal and professional. I certainly wouldn’t hire anyone dumb enough to cross the line while crossing the streams. There’s a lotta bad judgment out there…
My own two cents on LI: Bad user experience, really bad customer service. Still pay for it but will be stopping if the product offering doesn’t improve soon.
The power of FaceBook is their business model, which is more open and contemporary relative to LinkedIn. FaceBook’s policy of letting the user’s decide what they want to expose is in line with the freedom users expect these days.
LinkedIn relies on locking up data, and their revenue is tied to data being unavailable – than the other way round.
We just launched our Professional Networking site called skillda (http://www.skillda.com) – and followed FaceBook based on our conversations with users.
@ Jack (#27):
Spot on. I fit that demo and I’ve been shocked at the number of people from all sorts of places in my past – college of course, but also non school stuff – who’ve found me and added me to Facebook. It is “the” social network for people who move beyond the more teenager MySpace, and I’ve got no plans on going elsewhere.
A significant number of these people are becoming business related contacts as well. Business related contacts are also adding me and looking me up; at a dinner with some business types the other night the suggestion was to “add me as a friend on Facebook” instead of doing the business card thing.
If they enabled networking, and some of their contacts enabled networking… well, it would seem like a natural place to do that sort of thing without doing it in the aggressive recruiting salesperson type of way…
It makes perfect sense that Facebook would go after, or open up for more professional networking. See my post on this topic
http://decker.t...acebook-wi.html
I used to use facebook, and myspace. I also use LinkedIn. I have started using searchles past two month or so. I have been really enjoying it compare to others. Anyone else is a member of searchles who can share his/her expereince with me? Either reply here, or if a searchles users, my display name is Geek on the site. please, fine me and reply there. Thanks Larry
LinkedIn is for professionals, but most users aren’t professionals. No wonder why facebook rocks and is better, in my opinion, than linkedin.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
The easiest solution for Facebook is to develop “profile templates” allowing the user to select how they want to use the application. Account types could be; student, personal, business, organization etc… Why hasn’t this been done yet?
The only people using facebook for business: Musicians, carneys, web-cam girls, club promoters, affiliate marketers, etc.
I know this is a plug, but I felt it was relevant. My company created a facebook app that allows users to search for service providers(other users). It is ideal for people that want to find new customers without being bombarded by recruiters. We created it quickly and are now in the process of reworking it and adding new features. You can find it via my name link above…
Great post. I am really excited about these new developments because we are launching an app on Wednesday, called Hobnob! that is designed to help people access their extended friend network for business connections.
With these new Facebook features, we (meaning me and other people that use Facebook) can separate some business contacts while intermingling others with/as friends (like the real world works!)
I am using Facebook MUCH more than any of the other networks because it is a great blend of catching up on friend’s photos/activities/whereabouts and an extensive networking tool.
Facebook users were originally college only and these are the people that are graduating into the workforce. They need to build a professional network and if they can do it smoothly and efficiently within a network that they are already comfortable and ingrained in, why switch to another?
I think it’s all a personal choice and how you use any social system out there.
I’ve had a profile on LinkedIN for a long time, and have a decent number of contacts. But, as an independent consultant, I’ve never seen any measurable results from using LinkedIN.
Facebook, on the other hand, is the perfect platform for BUSINESS networking. Within less than 3 months, I’ve built an extensive community that is strictly professional – no dating, flirting, or other frivolous nonsense. [lol]. I’m finding it ver easy to immediately connect with quality, like-minded people, find out all kinds of great things about them and start to build relationships.
I am just really tired of social networking right now… it’s getting ridiculous.
There’s like a million sites out there. And people are still talking so much about them… I started using facebook in 04, so it’s getting quite old for me. and interesting i know at least 10 people who’ve stopped using it. Dang. And I keep getting Hi5 invites and “tags”. Just don’t know when all this facebook social networking talk will cool down.
Its an emotional game?
undoubtely, there is a place for a facebook-like dedicated to coworkers