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Actually, it's time to be more serious about social networking
I read Dan's post (below, hopefully, but here's a link just in case this post has wandered off on its own) and thought I'd take issue. Sorry, Dan. Actually, I'm not disagreeing with Dan - after all, he is right on the money. I'm not too sure I want the IWR readers and contributors group on Facebook to know exactly how many chocolate chip muffins I ate this afternoon - that's something for my friends to know, although possibly not the colleagues over the desk from me who wondered where the last one went.
But I also think that the line between work and social life is blurred, especially in more recent times. I talk about personal things with my workmates and contacts, and knowing about each other as people always helps to smooth things along. However, the sorts of information people share on Facebook - as Dan has pointed out - are increasingly becoming more intimate.
Yet, my first reaction to reading the post below was: isn't Facebook for professionals actually called LinkedIn? I know it doesn't get much love, and I'm one of thousands who has rather neglected their profile on that site, but frankly, it's there for friends and business contacts that I want to stay in contact with professionally. Facebook is something you share with an inner business circle, because you want to find out how everyone did at Glastonbury, or see the latest pictures of an old workmates' kids.
Then again, there is a reason why LinkedIn isn't necessarily the Facebook Pro of which we seek.
Put simply, these things don't develop in parallel as much as we'd like to believe they do. LinkedIn overlapped with Orkut, which overlapped Friendster, which overlapped with Faceparty, which overlapped with MySpace, which overlapped with Facebook.
Facebook will be replaced in the affections of social networkers some time soon by a newer, shinier toy, something with more bells and whistles, perhaps, or something a little more elegant. Or possibly something that makes the distinction between friends you share everything with, and business acquaintances you'd like to share certain things with. I don't know. LinkedIn survived as a popular cause for a few years, and it'll probably stumble on for a few more, but I'm betting there will be a thinning out of other, weaker, members of the social networking circle some time soon.
I also know one other thing - it's not linear. Orkut still has a huge following in Brazil, for example. LinkedIn is still visited. Will the last person in at Plaxo.com please turn out the lights? Which brings us to another point I've only just stumbled across. I can't remember the last time I visited Plaxo, and yet it has a couple of hundred business contacts of mine on file. I need to wipe them right away.
[Edit: Monday, 30th August: I've just had a call from the lovely people that represent Plaxo about this post, saying that, actually, Plaxo hasn't been sitting around twiddling its thumbs. They didn't threaten to break my legs or anything, you understand, but they did point out that Plaxo is now on version 3.0, and has added many more bells and whistles since I last logged in. I'll be talking to them next week - more then, hopefully. In the mean time, I'm going to try and work out the last time I had any interaction with someone as a result of Plaxo.]
Daniel Griffin, IWR Deputy Editor
Peter Williams, IWR Editor
Which means gentlemen, I presume, that organisations and senior executives need to have their links, contacts, profiles and interaction managed as communities move from social network to network. Is this a new form of information management and task developing?
Posted by :Mark Chillingworth | July 19, 2007 12:28 PM
It's my view that people are already making a distinction between personal/leasure social networking platforms and professional social media sites.
Until now, and perhaps for some time yet, Linked In will remain foremost, but another platform fast gaining ground in education and learning circles is Elgg.
Facebook doesn't allow me to work with my network and co-create new content. A professional platform must support real work and interactivity both synchronously and asynchronously. Facebook has none of this - yet.
Elgg is open source so I'm not flogging anything here - just giving you a tip. My own blog is housed on an Elgg site - see for yourself the difference in what you can do, any why Facebook will never be adopted by a Professional/Working population.
http://intouch.emeraldinsight.com
Posted by :Paul Coyne | July 20, 2007 10:27 AM
Great comments, Paul. A couple of things:
* People don't necessarily want a monolithic application. Plenty of workmates use Facebook; we're all connected together using that. However, it'd have to be a pretty special platform to replace the applications we use to collaborate. The company I work for has paid a lot of money for Lotus Notes, Quark DMS and a custom CMS platform. We're also heavy IM users here, so it's going to have to beat AIM, GTalk and MSN. While more flexible collaborative applications work well in an academic or freelance environment, there are still companies out there that use their own apps, or buy in industrial-strength ones. I'm not saying these are better, by the way.
My belief is that people tend to use collaborative tools and social networking tools in a Unix-like manner. We don't pay at point of use for Facebook et al, so why not move to a new tool if it offers something better, or if all of our contacts move to it?
* Facebook has been adopted by a professional, working population. I use it to keep in touch with people I work with, and I recently used it to pitch a feature to someone. It's clunky, and it's not perfect, but it works. I'm pretty sure when something better comes along, I'll end up joining the herd as it gallops off to the next shiny toy. Again, I'm not saying this is better.
Finally, thanks for the tip - I'll have a look at Elgg in more detail as soon as I have the time. Here's the URL for people interested in it: http://elgg.org/
Ta,
Ben
Posted by :Ben Tudor | July 20, 2007 10:44 AM