FacedIn?
Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with a few different people about whether Facebook will overtake LinkedIn as the business social network du jour. There’s actually quite a bit of discussion about it out there and Bernard Lunn at ReadWriteWeb wrote a post about it a couple days ago. What’s really interesting though, is the accompanying poll that asks, “In 6 months time, will you have more business contacts in Facebook than LinkedIn?” Sixty-seven percent of respondents said LinkedIn, versus 27 percent for Facebook.
Why is that interesting? Well, for me, it’s because LinkedIn is virtually useless. My LinkedIn experience – and that of many others I know – consists of getting invitations from people, accepting them and then wondering for a couple seconds why I actually do this. This is part my own ignorance – many people fully utilize LinkedIn’s capabilities – but mainly because LinkedIn just isn’t that useful or user friendly.
It’s tough to imagine LinkedIn ever outpacing Facebook as the predominant business social networking application. Sure, Facebook has ridiculous aspects like zombies and throwing sheep, LOL, OMG and a huge audience of high schoolers and college kids simply looking for the next party. But, it’s also got real business value – a powerful conversation platform and meeting place, an application platform, and, well, it’s just fun. LinkedIn is just a glorified bulletin board.
While Facebook may seem a bit childish and immature to use as a business platform, the company also fully knows this and is working to change it. My guess? In six months, I’ll have more business contacts on Facebook than LinkedIn. In a year, I’ll actually be doing a whole lot business on Facebook. And so will you.
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Jason M.
Posted on November 23rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm.
I totally agree Corey. In just a few months, I’ve virtually matched the number of business contacts in Facebook what it took me a good five years to accumulate in LinkedIn.