The Jeff Pulver Blog: Guest Blogger: Chris Brogan - "BusinessWeek Readers and Facebook"

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August 07, 2007

Guest Blogger: Chris Brogan - "BusinessWeek Readers and Facebook"

"BusinessWeek Readers and Facebook"

In Jeff Pulver's recent article for BusinessWeek ViewPoint, Confessions of a LinkedIN Dropout, I found myself blown away by some of the comments and reactions to the post. It was a strong reminder that the world Jeff and I live in -- Internet-facing, innovation- and disruption-powered -- isn't the world where mainstream business people spend their time.

Regarding the comments, I wanted to take a moment to talk to any prospective BusinessWeek readers who surf over to Jeff's blog to see where he's been coming from. There are probably a dozen posts about Facebook and/or Facebook-related activities on here. That might help you get to understand the platform a bit. But here's some more to think about when wondering why someone uses these applications, and why someone switches.

Engagement Matters

LinkedIN is a tool that provides an excellent reputation management engine. It tells me who my connections know, what people say about my connections, and gives me a means by which to connect to people my friends know. This is powerful, and I'm a fan of LinkedIN, but I understand why Jeff writes that it's not enough for his needs.

Facebook provides some richness of context. If someone updates their status, you can know where they are, when might be a good time to call, what other things are going on in their world, all from browsing their information. LinkedIN wasn't built to do that. It's mostly contacts and reputation.

Starting Over

Some people wondered why Jeff would "jump ship" and choose to recreate his contacts and relationships on Facebook after already building them up in LinkedIN. Simple. You go where the conversation is going. If new business is happening on Facebook, through groups, through an in-system messaging application, and through a general rush of new users, why would you avoid it?

That's the comment that floored me the most. Why go to the new thing? Because millions of people ALSO went to the new thing. Are you still a Prodigy user? Did you keep you regular TV channels when cable came out? Of course not.

Starting over might be a little bit of work, but it's beneficial insofar as that is where lots of new contacts, new business, and innovative entrepreneurs are spending their efforts right now.

The Shill Commentary

Several people called Jeff a shill for Facebook, hinting that there was a business relationship. While I bet Jeff wouldn't mind being part of Facebook in some fashion or another, I'll vouch that he's just a big fanboy. In our space, we write about things we love.

Less Involvement

Lots of people blew me away by saying that they couldn't see why people would use Facebook when LinkedIN took less involvement. Sure, social networking isn't inherent to all businesses. But to determine that reaching out to new, valuable business contacts is too much effort? Well, good luck with that.

Business vs. Personal

I'm going to bet this: everyone who commented on Jeff's article that Facebook is personal and LinkedIN is for business aren't Facebook users. I personally use Facebook to manage several business relationships, including a community management group, a technology research group, a social cause I started, and several conference pre-networking groups. LinkedIN is professional. Facebook can be professional, should users choose to configure it.

In Closing

Perhaps the mainstream business world doesn't need faster information channels. Maybe they don't need strong relationship-building tools that manage richer interactions between colleagues, clients, and partners. Maybe they think LinkedIN is only a digital version of their resume, and that's good enough. I'm surely not going to convince you otherwise. Instead, I'll be over here growing my business with the tools you've passed over as a waste of your time.

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Chris Brogan produces the Video on the Net conference and blogs at [chrisbrogan.com]

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Tags: Chris Brogan, LinkedIn, Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff on August 7, 2007 08:52 AM | Permalink

Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos

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Posted by: ameu at August 9, 2007 12:52 AM

It must be an age thing to see the business value of Facebook. I use it to keep in touch with colleagues I liked as friends. I use Linkedin to network with people beyond my core. I can't imagine that people that I might one day have a business relationship with will like to see my movie reviews, or pictures of my family and my video postings. There are distinct uses for each social networking site - both in networking and marketing. Even myspace profile is just so I can connect to my favourite bands. What I would like is a social networking site where you can have different profiles for different people - You can update some fields the same but for others such as colleagues in your work world - they won't see too much of those personal details you are sharing with friends and family. I don't want that work wall to blend my worlds. Didn't george costanza on Seinfeld say "my worlds are colliding?" I will keep my friends on Facebook and my work in Linkedin.

Posted by: Sarah at August 8, 2007 04:53 PM

Great points made above about new walls falling. The lines between your personal interests and your corporate duties are coming together in key ways, and maybe Facebook is the better vehicle for this new mantra.

Posted by: Dave at August 8, 2007 12:52 PM

There are two obvious aspects to this. One is established relationships and potential. Although I never did much on Linkedin, it has a base that one wouldn't want to leave if one cares about that aspect. The other factor is the kind of tools available. Facebook has one tool that is absolutely brilliant, the friends timeline. So, for examples' sake, you think a lot of Chris Brogan and common interests between you. You see what groups he joins, how fast he leaves them. By the way you also see who he makes friends with. Gee, if I needed an intro to 'X' and saw Chris made friends with 'X', I could ask Chris to pimp me (or at least mention me) to 'X'. For better or worse...

I've watched a few people and have joined certain FB groups as a result of this. For all I know, others have done the same watching me.

Anyway, as far as I know, Linkedin doesn't have things like this, and does it have walls, forums, blogs and all the other features? I only know about the very wide business user base and the "I can introduce you if you have a paid account" idea.

Posted by: Randy Resnick at August 7, 2007 09:14 PM

Hi Chris,

Let me preface my comment by saying that I understand that different tools work for different users, but I'd love to give Jeff a walk-through of LinkedIn if & when he'd like to :) (Disclosure to readers: I'm the community evangelist at LinkedIn)

As I've said in some of my earlier comments and as you know, Chris; I'm both a Facebook and LinkedIn user but I choose to keep my personal and professional lives separate. I'm a member of your Grasshoppers group on Facebook in much the same way I'm a member of many Yahoo! groups, but I (personally) have not found any effective business related application/usage on Facebook. I however, find it a great way for social networks to entertain themselves w/ latest pictures (http://tinyurl.com/yp9k78), movies seen, music heard, etc...

See you at Gnomedex this week! I look forward to meeting you.

Posted by: Mario Sundar at August 7, 2007 06:50 PM

One more wall falls...
At least that's how it seems for me. I've been teetering on the edge, trying to stay committed to LinkedIn, and not totally willing to accept the full-on social aspects of Facebook. While I've recently created many more contacts in LinkedIn, how do I leverage those contacts to benefit my agenda, my vision? How do I get to know them, their interests, and so on to enable a more personal business connection?

At the same time, professionally, I wince at the inconsequential tidbits that get traded between friends on Facebook, the minutia that I look for on LinkedIn. It is hard to see professional uses for Facebook when you think of it in traditional terms.

And that's what I see falling, another wall, a barrier that I (we?) artificially create when trying to climb the corporate ladder.

Jeff, as I said yesterday on Twitter, I didn't think I fully understood Facebook. I understand more today, and I want to thank Chris for a great perspective on the discussion.

Later guys!
~Rick

Posted by: Rick Mahn at August 7, 2007 06:43 PM

We briefly twittered about this you and I. I live and work in the UK where the concept of off the shelf webdesign such as Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress or Type pad is utterly foreign and indeed to many web designers it is a threat to their apparent business models.

Meanwhile attempting to explain the value in social media. Social Network ( Optimisation ? ) and Micromedia let alone podcasts or community managers leaves many businesses here feeling utterly cold.

On the one hand everyone here is tired from the constant upgrade ( and associated costs ) stream of the encumbent operating system economy ( yep im not going to say their name this is a Google world after all ) . On the other hand they want to be uptodate but not so much that they feel their own businesses and clients will not understand them.

Many are confused by how the internet relates to their business. They are stuck in a model of Business to Business. They expect businesses to communicate and operate over the internet without human involvement. They dont seem to recognise that they are themselves surfing the internet as a Human being. So its hard to explain how the concepts of 10 years ago are rapidly outdated and poorly fitting to their current environment.

I backed the Open Source movement 8 years ago and now that its moving to its tipping point ( Dell shipping OSS in Europe ) I am moving to a new arena that will require championing and innovation and promotion, Online Social Networks.

Ive not passed those tools over for usage and I am going to find and encourage those early adopters who want to make use of my time to help them integrate quickly. So I for one appreciate the work and effort you and Chris are putting in .

Thanks for reading.

Posted by: Nicholas Butler at August 7, 2007 05:17 PM

Hey Chris,
I really liked Produgy and their travel forums. I also liked Byte Magazine's BIX service and was even a moderator there.

Those text based, threaded forums have not been duplicated on the web yet as far as I can tell.

On bix, you could go to a forum and be presented with only the new messages from people. It was all organized in a great way.

I didn't leave Prodigy either, they left me.

So if anyone reading this can suggest a great threaded forum, I'd like to see it...

--Steve

Posted by: steve garfield at August 7, 2007 10:01 AM

August 07, 2007

Guest Blogger: Chris Brogan - "BusinessWeek Readers and Facebook"

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