Facebook vs LinkedIn as a business tool

[mandy]

Professionally, I believe Facebook has the potential to significantly impact web working. Shout if you never “talked shop” at a family barbeque when you’ve had the opportunity to chat about something related to your work that you enjoy. Shout if you never had a personal conversation with a colleague. ::crickets:: I thought so. Truth is, while there is a line between our work and personal lives, it’s a moving one. Facebook applications allow you to position that “line” between your worlds where you feel most comfortable. For example, I added the Causes application to my profile and created a cause to fight colorectal cancer through advocacy, with the hope of using the viral network to help promote the mission and activities of the nonprofit organization I get paid to work for. My father died of colon cancer in 1999. Is it business, or is it personal? In the end…does the distinction really matter? It’s still all about people...

full article: http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/07/12/fac.../#more-947

more:

Well, I compare it to LinkedIn (which is the competitor that comes up the most in conversations), Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. All of which have a social network component where you can keep track of your friends.

First, Facebook has far better contact management than Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku. If I look up someone on all three networks Facebook shows me more, brings it up faster, and has a better look into their own social networks. That leaves LinkedIn to compare it to. I dropped off LinkedIn a year ago cause the expected useage model there is to have your friends do things for you. Pass along resumes, give references, etc. Because of my popularity I simply got too many requests to do those things. There is no such expectation on Facebook.

When I talk with people about the two, also, they say that LinkedIn is for their professional lives and Facebook is for their personal stuff...

full article: http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/12/why-facebook-why-now/

[gashmaster]

When I talk with people about the two, also, they say that LinkedIn is for their professional lives and Facebook is for their personal stuff...

[/quote]

This is really the gist of it isn't it? People go to faceplant to waste their time with either useless nonsense like the farmland game or to stalk their friends and brag about which nostril they're currently picking, or how many shots of jack it took them to be all primed for a date infarction - while linked in really is a social networking site in the sense that networking is about gainful and lucrative employment or career motivations.

I don't even know to this day why jackmeo's think they're company should be represented in faceplant when people are just wasting their time there at a myspace that uses real names instead of personnas - linkedin really is the place, along with xing.com, where actual networking occurs.



I just keep schwanging back and forth here and hope I get a response from the luvly mandypants. Glad she agrees with my take on the scheme of things.