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July 16, 2007
Goodbye LinkedIn. Hello Facebook.
This morning I made the decision to focus all of my professional business social networking contacts to be on Facebook. That means that I am no longer going to accept new LinkedIn requests. After spending the past few months using Facebook, I no longer see the value of LinkedIn. Why use a static site where the fun stops at the profile when there is a wealth of opportunity for vibrant interaction between users and groups of users on Facebook? And since I come from the world where “an introduction is an endorsement”, I wasn’t all that helpful most of the time when someone was trying to use me to connect to someone else on LinkedIn.
For those of you who think the quality of contacts don't exist on Facebook, they do. There is a growing list of some pretty amazing people who have become active on Facebook during the past month. In fact it was after seeing some of the people that I know including: Vint Cerf and Vinod Khosla on Facebook that convinced me that I should focus my attention on just one platform, at least for now. And during the past month I have connected with many of my colleagues from our VON events, friends from the New Media space and friends in Israel.
In LinkedIn, everything centers around establishing a connection. In Facebook, connecting is just the beginning. Facebook is all about community. And this can been seen by doing things like leaving messages on users' walls, joining groups and having discussions, as well as some of the more social applications built for Facebook.
I find that the interactions I have through Facebook are at once more rewarding and more nuanced and meaningful than what I experienced on LinkedIn. And in fact, in many cases it is easier to communicate with someone on Facebook than on email. Facebook IS the internet portal of 2007. And it is where you will find me.
Tags: Israel, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vint Cerf, Vinod Khosla, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on July 16, 2007 07:23 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Internet TV Online Guide @ Network2.tv | Voice on the Net Conference | Video on the Net Conference
Comments
It's the place I go to get phone numbers now, instead of Skype profiles. Weird, I know.
Posted by: Relocation at May 8, 2008 12:45 PM
I have found another great Professional Networking Website(www.fastpitchnetworking.com) Its not as social as Facebook, and is a great way to network and market your business.
Posted by: John at April 21, 2008 01:15 PM
Posted by: multik at April 9, 2008 05:04 AM
Linkedin is better than Facebook and all the other social networks that exist by far.
Posted by: Kate at April 1, 2008 07:36 PM
Very interesting. I am use LinkedIn fairly extensivly and when I first started using FaceBook a few months ago, I was certain that this would it would revolve around the social aspects of my life and not the professional. After using it for a while I though that one of the apps I would like to see in FaceBook is the LinkedIn type of professional networking.
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Oh, the line breaks don't show up in preview only when you post. Then why is it called "preview"?
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Posted by: facebookster at March 11, 2008 02:35 AM
LinkedIn is scary. You can't leave them. They say you can, and imply it from their customer service emails, but finally after you follow up about why your profile is still online they let you know:
"Thanks for replying back to us. We will not remove the account. If there is anything that we can do please let us know.
Thanks for using LinkedIn!"
Posted by: LinkedIn=prison at November 6, 2007 12:42 PM
It will not take long for Facebook to surpass Linkedin as the business networking site of choice when the right application comes along.
We think that Kuhnektid is that application.
Posted by: Trevor Brooks at October 25, 2007 02:01 AM
theyve seem to add every app possible making the site messy and ugly but their so stupid for not adding the peekamo app. check this out. i wouldnt be surprised if google used this.
http://www.undertheradarblog.com/wp_blog.html?fb_2042860_anch=2905755
Posted by: Brian at October 21, 2007 03:02 PM
so, it's been a couple of months, how do you like having Facebook as your main networking tool?!
Posted by: Mark at September 8, 2007 04:27 PM
Fee good points... but still, Linkedin is HUGE!!!
www.linkedin.com/in/burda
- Steven Burda
Posted by: Steven Burda at August 19, 2007 12:56 AM
Jeff - there are a couple of things that are very telling in your BusinessWeek article:
"I suppose it was my fault but I rarely refused someone who asked to connect with me. And over time..."
So you tried to use LinkedIn like a social networking platform, rather than a relationship management tool. You got the same kind of results you might expect if you try to drive a nail with a screwdriver handle. LinkedIn has always positioned themselves as being a tool for leveraging the relationships you already have, not making new ones on a largescale basis, nor interacting with your existing contacts except to help them get business done via trusted referrals.
People have tried to make it do all kinds of other stuff, generally without much success, and then ensuing frustration and disappointment. Maybe LinkedIn is a one-trick pony, but that's still a very valuable trick, and it does it better than anybody else.
"What's more... nonviral...no compelling reason for me to stay and interact with the community."
While LinkedIn Answers has changed that somewhat, and while it's easy enough to connect with other LinkedIn users in the blogosphere and the many Yahoo Groups devoted to it, my answer to that would be, "So what?" The value in LinkedIn is not in "staying and interacting with the community."
In fact, quite the reverse. The fact that it DOESN'T require a lot of interaction to deliver value is precisely what makes it uniquely attractive, particularly to busy executives, entrepreneurs and other professionals. It's efficient and task-oriented, and that's what I love about it.
I'm checking out Facebook too, but frankly, outside of Web 2.0 discussions, I find more substantial business conversation on the old stand-bys like Ryze and Ecademy.
That said, I'm impressed as hell with Facebook's technology, love what's happening with the open API, and if enough early adopters like you move over there, maybe it'll get interesting. But at the moment, it's a technological curiosity for me.
Posted by: Scott Allen at August 6, 2007 10:02 PM
I use LinkedIn to search business people I am about to deal with and to see who is out there at a company that I want to deal with.
So far I have found that not very doable on FaceBook. My 10,000+ record database yielded 268 people on FaceBook. It yielded 3,400 people on LinkedIn.
I am all for FaceBook and am very excited to use it. How do I use it for business (research and networking) with such a small base of local business people on it? I know someone out here has some guidance. Please advise.
Mike O'Neil
President
Integrated Alliances
Posted by: Mike O'Neil at July 24, 2007 02:58 AM
Reading through the comments here it seems obvious that there is a significant difference in perception of these two services. LinkedIn is perceived as a"professional" network and Facebook is still perceived a non-work social network.
The early adapters like Jeff are adjusting their own perceptions based on value.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes the masses to adjust as well.
Posted by: Chris Cree at July 20, 2007 04:45 PM
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."?:)
Posted by: Satyajeet at July 17, 2007 04:10 PM
Very interesting. I am use LinkedIn fairly extensivly and when I first started using FaceBook a few months ago, I was certain that this would it would revolve around the social aspects of my life and not the professional. After using it for a while I though that one of the apps I would like to see in FaceBook is the LinkedIn type of professional networking.
I guess you are right Jeff, FaceBook will probally replace LinkedIn for many people, myself included, at least over time. But LinkedIn still holds more a professional circle for me, and my LinkedIn profile is probally a better CV than my actual one (this might be an area that the LinkedIn people should think more about).
My social an professional networks used to be very exclusive, but becoming older (I am not that old yet though), they are merging (probably due to me feeling more comfortable that with that fact).
I really like LinkedIn, but it has not gotten the big momentum it would need. I hope it does, before FaceBook replace LinkedIn...
Nicolai
Posted by: Nicolai Wadstrom at July 17, 2007 01:46 PM
Wise choice. Not many people have the time to maintain both profiles, and going with the majority has to be the key. Facebook are winning the Social Networking war, hands down.
Posted by: Yosef Silver at July 17, 2007 09:06 AM
Actually LinkedIn and Facebook will go together under the Paypal Mafia :)
Posted by: Jason Vu at July 17, 2007 08:02 AM
Very astute observations.
I definitely think Facebook is headed in this direction. It may not be today or tomorrow, but 6 months to 1 year from now it will look much differently. Anecdotally, I'm finding more and more of my professional network ON Facebook.
While some people may prefer to keep the two separate, you pretty much follow your network. Once you find that most of your colleagues are on Facebook, and that's where you're getting requests to connect, you can't help but find that your professional network is on Facebook.
I think LinkedIn will have to fight this eventuality not simply by convincing themselves that people will always want to keep the 2 separate, but create an offering so compelling that users will want to keep it this way. So far this isn't the case.
Posted by: Peter C at July 17, 2007 02:11 AM
I don't feel compelled at this point to consolidate over to Facebook. I prefer keeping business and non-business separate with whatever overlap is appropriate. I think Facebook benefits from being a much wider experience, while LinkedIn benefits from being precisely the opposite.
Posted by: pwb at July 16, 2007 06:50 PM
Jeff,
I have been on LinkedIn since almost their launch. When it first launched it was between LinkedIn and Ryze.com (remember them?) for which sites were the most useful to me. I was also active on Ecademy.com but it never quite grew in the US.
In the past month I finally broke down and joined Facebook.
At the same time, LinkedIn has been getting more active with "connection" requests - but little else (and mostly connection requests from people I have either just met or don't really know that well).
In contrast, via Facebook I have quickly connected with a solid representation of people whom I am indeed connected to, and Facebook is proving itself useful as I organize my MeshWalk in Palo Alto next week (more useful in fact than upcoming.org).
Shannon
(we met in NYC a few months back)
Posted by: Shannon Clark at July 16, 2007 06:38 PM
if any1 is interested the site is peekamo.com
Posted by: Kory at July 16, 2007 05:39 PM
yes facebook seem to be spreading like a virus, but i came across the peekamo social mobile network which caught my attention.
Posted by: Kory at July 16, 2007 05:38 PM
I am of the opinion there is a place for both apps. Facebook for Fun Networking and LinkedIn for Professional Networking. I can see LinkedIn becoming an App within Facebook but not the other way round.
Posted by: valleyblogzine at July 16, 2007 05:19 PM
I TOTALLY AGREE. In four weeks my Facebook address book has gotten more than 3,000 contacts almost all of whom are totally business related. Yeah, they are my friends too, and I'll go out to eat with any of them, but Facebook is not only for college students anymore.
Get the Google Reader application for Facebook and you'll see something really interesting going on there.
Posted by: Robert Scoble at July 16, 2007 05:00 PM
Facebook = online social network;
LinkedIn = online professional network;
AlwaysOn = a little bit of each; heavily Silicon Valley centric (or so it seems).
I have various Skype accounts for the same reason, i.e., one for business, one for friends.
To give up on LinkedIn signals to me that you don't think that they'll come up with better tools. Perhaps you're right. But FB doesn't have good business tools yet, either. Still too close to call.
Posted by: David Scott Lewis at July 16, 2007 03:03 PM
Hi Jeff,
I'm the community evangelist at LinkedIn. Personally, I've kept both my business and social networks separate. I'm on Facebook and find it a place to track my social activities (movies, music, parties, etc...) and I stick to LinkedIn for anything business related (jobs, recommendations, professional answers, event networking, etc...)
As you're probably aware, we're also working on APIs that will allow users to take their business network across different platforms.
Let me know if you've any questions: msundar@linkedin.com.
Posted by: Mario Sundar at July 16, 2007 02:48 PM
I agree! The only advantage LinkedIn has now is the testimonials and "questions", but they can easily be Facebook Apps. I'd like the UI on facebook to be more customizable visually, but overall Facebook Rocks. BTW, it would be great to have you connect with me at FB. Hope you'll oblige.
Posted by: Ray Podder at July 16, 2007 02:05 PM
I agree with your comments about LinkedIn, which is why we created Professional networking for Congoo.com's Industry news channels. We felt that combining an Industry's news and information with community would be the ideal mix. I'm not crazy about using Facebook for business purposes, as I've always thought of it as a student's site.
Posted by: Ash Nashed at July 16, 2007 02:00 PM
That is brave of you!
I like the separation of business and play.
On LinkedIn I keep contacts acquired through work. I also keep the language clean and business oriented.
On Facebook I am free to contact to old friends and random people and use "after-working-hours" language: jesting, irony, childish and much more.
Until Facebook creates a business oriented skin I will continue using LinkedIn.
Posted by: David Kaspar at July 16, 2007 12:54 PM
Well said. I also share similar opinion. Trying to ask my LinkedIn connections to come over to facebook.
Posted by: Krish at July 16, 2007 12:51 PM
(sorry, thought the editor allowed embedded links, but i guess not)... here's my guess / rumor / take on LinkedIn building a Facebook app:
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/07/rumor-linkedin-.html
Posted by: dave mcclure at July 16, 2007 12:21 PM
interesting decision.
well now i'm even more convinced that LinkedIn should be building a business networking app on Facebook.
- dave mcclure
Posted by: dave mcclure at July 16, 2007 12:17 PM
I don't see Facebook vs. LinkedIn as an "either/or" proposition. I can be (and am) on both and enjoy the benefits of each.
Posted by: Dale Cruse at July 16, 2007 11:13 AM
Well said. No trackback? http://www.emresokullu.com/?p=293
quote:
LinkedIn is too cold, Facebook can dilute the dullness of professional life by leveraging your social life and daily friends - this is an added value for professional networking
Posted by: Emre Sokullu at July 16, 2007 11:08 AM
The thing with Facebook is that I don't see it as a business type of area. I see linked in as a more serious place to really look for the contacts that I know are for business purposes only.
Posted by: Avrom at July 16, 2007 11:03 AM
I think the ball is in the linkedin court. They need to leverage their status as a "business" networking site and chart a new course. You nailed it when you said "In LinkedIn, everything centers around establishing a connection. In Facebook, connecting is just the beginning. Facebook is all about community."
Posted by: Sach at July 16, 2007 11:03 AM
I agree with Jeff - LinkedIn was a great start but FB now has the interactivity and fun factor to make people use it for more than just addresses.
Facebook could do with a bit more "address book" and "add correspondents" functionality but it seems to work quite well despite that. LinkedIn, to be fair, also gave some level of difficulty in the adding correspondents area.
I'll keep both for a while too, but FB wins for me, until something better comes along.
Posted by: teddlesruss at July 16, 2007 10:46 AM
spend a lot of time navigating the various networks...all while balancing work and internet projects... am loving facebook as well, and glad to hear your thoughts... any excuse to drop a network feels like a breath of fresh air!
Posted by: kathryn Jones at July 16, 2007 10:33 AM
I'll remain on LinkedIn for a while -- it's a business based tool, while Zuckerberg is just, well, a tool. Plus Facebook is just to filled with junk and clutter.
Posted by: Max at July 16, 2007 10:12 AM
Facebook files like a souped up address book that has a little life breathed into it... a little activity-- nothing that's unmanageable-- a little organic vibe to remind us that people are doing a little more than cutting and pasting and clicking 'accept' all the time.
It's the place I go to get phone numbers now, instead of Skype profiles. Weird, I know.
Good call.
Posted by: Eric Rice at July 16, 2007 09:59 AM
Jeff
You're right, in fact many of us started to predict this would happen a while ago.
Many of us questioned what was LinkedIn's Web Strategy, as they needed to evolve to this open model quickly
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/06/12/linkedins-web-strategy/
Here's where I predict Facebook will go
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/06/23/web-strategy-predictions-facebook-identity-social-networks/
Posted by: Jeremiah Owyang at July 16, 2007 09:55 AM
Well, for one thing, LinkedIn makes it past my company firewall but Facebook does not, so I will continue to use both of them. I also like to have an active account on each of them to maintain some separation between a professional social ap and a recreational social ap.
Posted by: Kirk at July 16, 2007 09:35 AM
Oh, the line breaks don't show up in preview only when you post. Then why is it called "preview"?
Posted by: joec at July 16, 2007 08:56 AM
(Damn how do you put line breaks in this editor? doesn't work!)
I have always found LinkedIn's concepts difficult to understand and wondered what value it had for me. And I've never used it once for business purposes, although I'm not as active as I used to be in business.
On the other hand, Facebook's UI leaves a lot to be desired, too. That may have something to do with the fact that I don't yet understand the concepts and operations available there. But the UI doesn't help. It seems terribly busy and scattershot to me. This here, that there, with no unifying concept.
Facebook certainly has become more popular in the last few weeks, if the Twitter barometer is any indication. I have a page there, but I hardly ever visit because I find it confusing and sort of "kitchen-sink"-like. You know, all different things with nothing tying it together.
I truly doubt that any one site will (or should) become the "home" for connecting people. It's just too big a universe of relationship types and related operations on those types for one site. Maybe that's the issue I'm having with Facebook. You can't be all things to all people. Twitter and Flickr are great concept-wise because they focus on one thing, keep it simple, and try to make it faster and more reliable.
I think the future lies in people owning and maintaining their own simple database of relationships and letting soc-net sites attach to that personal database, and lay useful functionality on top of it, perhaps adding their own unique relationship types to your personal database. The best solutions are open, with no one company or site "owning" it.
Posted by: joec at July 16, 2007 08:53 AM
I think you might have jumped the gun a bit on this one. I for one have both and will keep an eye on how things change. Facebook has gotten some critisism for having too many garbage apps and being a bit loud (when compared to LinkedIn not MySpace). I for one am not a big fan of Facebook yet, even though my contacts are slowly growing.
I would wait and stick with LinkedIn a bit longer... my opinion. In the meantime I'm going to add you to my Facebook contacts list. :-)
Posted by: Romek at July 16, 2007 08:35 AM