Facebook and LinkedIn: Worlds Colliding
So I’m 6 days into my Facebook experiment and a few things have become clear to me:
- Facebook is a far more dynamic environment than a blog. While they are certainly not mutually exclusive, there is a dynamism and real-time interaction with Facebook that is not present in a blog.
- For business-types, LinkedIn has been the platform of choice. And it will be for some time. But there is an interactivity to Facebook that either cries for additional social functionality in LinkedIn or a melding of the Facebook and LinkedIn platforms.
- With LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, ZoomInfo and others, there are simply too many platforms. There will be a colliding of worlds when people demand a single portal for their business and personal lives.
- That said, there will always be room for niche sites. It’s just that the migration of business-types to Facebook, the same people that are power-users of LinkedIn, will eventually demand synchronization. But there are far more people in the world than those in college and the workplace, and very robust, profitable sites will continue to flourish as the Internet continues its Great Leap Forward.
There is clearly an addictive quality to Facebook, given the interactivity. I first established a profile for myself, Roger Ehrenberg, and then started groups named after my blog, Information Arbitrage, and my angel investment vehicle, IA Capital Partners. The Information Arbitrage group is specifically designed to extend the discussion on this blog, where I toss out questions that I’d like the group to address. The IA Capital Partners group is meant to discuss potential Internet investments in the domains I am focused on, particularly financial technology, digital media and social networking. While I haven’t really gotten the IA group going yet, the Information Arbitrage group has already had some great comments to the initial questions I posed. I am excited to see if the momentum continues, and if the environment I’ve created is effective in getting great people to share their thoughts and perspectives.
The bottom line: to learn, connect and make money. Through my blog I’ve met people I’ve hired into my company, sourced others for my portfolio companies, met those with whom I’ve invested, and laid the foundation for life-long relationships. In the immortal words of Chico Escuela (played by Garrett Morris of Saturday Night Live), “(the Internet) has been berry, berry good to me.” It is truly mind-boggling that experiment #1, blogging, began less than one year ago. And to think what it added to my personal and professional lives is unbelievable. I am looking forward to continuing the Facebook experiment and reporting back to my readers. So far, so good. But thus far, I am very, very impressed.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Michael
EMAIL: michael@tradermike.net
DATE: 07/08/2007 11:13:59 PM
IA Capital Partners, eh? I’ll be in touch about an investment in www.Mike.com
On another note, you may like what Susan just wrote about Facebook & LinkedIn - http://susanmernit.blogspot.com/2007/07/facebook-and-my-continual-partial.html
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Dene Schonknecht
EMAIL: deneschonknecht@hotmail.com
URL: http://methememe.com
DATE: 07/10/2007 02:12:34 AM
You are certainly correct about the addictive nature of Facebook. I wote about this recently myself. http://methememe.com/2007/07/05/figuring-out-facebook/
To me the really interesting pieces to the Facebook puzzle that will still fall into place over time:
Can they maintain the momentum - anecdotally, I believe Facebook are pulling audience away from MySpace - a similar darling of social networking sites not too long ago.
Can they monetise the audience effectively?
Can the continue to convince developers of the value of writing applications for their “platform”?
And perhaps most interestingly - who will acquire them and what direction will this take them?
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3 years ago
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