LinkedIn and Facebook debate...again...

-
I didn't know who Jeff Pulver was, but he's prominent enough for this blog entry to show up on Techmeme. His entry is about he's dropping LinkedIn for Facebook for professional networking. For some reason, I just couldn't resist. Hence, for the second-time ever, I ended up commenting on the blog of someone I don't personally know; conversational media, here I come.:) My comments below

Interesting. I think its a bad idea; but very interesting.:)

- I think pwb above gets it exactly right. There is value in keeping personal and professional interactions separate. I remember LinkedIn once being described by its found Evan Williams as "Resume 2.0." That's (mostly) exactly what it is. Facebook, for most of its users, is exactly not that. My sense is that most of its users (even young adults not just students) use it to talk about and to their friends, share (occasionally embarrassing) pictures, play games, flirt, waste time etc. That is definitely what Facebook is optimized for and hence there is the nuance that Jeff talks about.


- Everyone who I've heard suggest using Facebook as professional networking tool is, well...how do I put this delicately...."older", and doesn't seem to have this need or appreciate it. I'd be happy to add my mom on LinkedIn (she hasn't asked). I'd not be thrilled adding her on Facebook (she has asked!) All my Facebook "friends" are people I know socially, or through work but really well. LinkedIn is definitely a lot of social friends, but its also a lot of people I know by reputation or just passingly professionally. These people do not need to see whose walls I've been scribling on or what books I'm reading now.

At some point, I'm sure the value of this separation is reduced, but I'm not there yet. My guess is Jeff is.

LinkedIn is actually great the way it is. Its membership is definitely up and I hope it resists the temptation to copy Facebook too closely.

BTW, does anyone else think that someone in 2003, said "Friendster is THE Internet portal of 2003, and you'll find me there."?:)

Comments

Le Voyageur said…
Agree with your comments about keeping professional and personal separate - I'm a heavy user of LinkedIn for that purpose. As for Friendster, it had the potential but then failed to improve the user interface, and thus fell off the map.
3:20 PM
Anonymous said…
Agree that the two sites should be separate. However, I do think that there are certain things where the sites can take a cue from each other. For example: (1) LinkedIn can help authenticate user-provided information by verifying work/school email address as Facebook does for network memberships. Each line time can thus carry a 'verified' endorsement; (2) Facebook can provide a 'trail' to each user, so people know how they are connected; (3) While LinkedIn does not necessarily need to open up its interface to developers as Facebook has, it can nevertheless peek at successful applications on Facebook for ideas about features on its site... and on and on. But I totally agree that professional & social networks should not be mixed. In the words of George Costanza, "worlds collide" if that happens.
4:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "Rescue Me" minisodes

-
I'm a fan of the FX show " Rescue Me " I was lukewarm when Dennis Leary mentioned the mini-sodes on his Daily Show visit. But, for the Rescue Me's particular situation it works really well. First the mini-sodes are actually good! they use characters from the story and tell a little anecdote they were clearly pretty cheap to produce through what seems like a little bit of complicated mess, they're distributing like crazy: YouTube , Crackle (Sony's site), the FX site (powered by Brightcove), Hulu These do exactly what they're supposed to do new episodes aren't coming till Spring 2009 , the fans need something to tide them over and keep the show in their memory: done potentially rope in new fans (short episodes, lower commitment to start watching the show) without freaking out old school media which is loathe to risk potential DVD sales by putting older episodes/clips online: done Its not completely clear to me how much this is by their own design, and
Read more

A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

-
  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up using is how the mission
Read more

Avengers Endgame: how trivial passions can nudge a career

-
Image
The Internets reminded me that today was exactly 2 years since Avenger's Endgame was released. I remember that day vividly for a few reasons I woke up before sunrise (way before the alarm went off).   I wore this (now that I think about it) borderline appropriate T-shir t and then..  .. showed up before 7:00am to watch that movie at Century Shoreline before going to work.  This is still the only movie that has a scene that can make me tear up consistently every single time (I know, I know - it's ridiculous).  That day was interesting from a work perspective for another reason. Along with a few other people at work (and with some crazy last-minute negotiating), we'd pulled together the Thanos Easter Egg on Search. It was typical of a lot of Easter Eggs on Search at the time, in that it wasn't really anybody's job, but we pushed it through because we loved the idea enough to do it. My day job on Media experience on Search helped me justify it a little bit I guess.
Read more