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A-listers begin to see Facebook in a new light

A while back, I wrote that there is a big difference between a student using a social networking site, such as Facebook and a professional using it for business purposes. An A-lister using Facebook to further his blogging prospects do no a case make.

I wrote about what happens when a Facebook user grows up.
Befittingly, few read my posts. I am no A-lister. That is the way the blogosphere goes. I suppose it is because I don’t give time to networking.

I find it reassuring that A-listers are looking at Facebook with a different eye. We know Facebook a closed platform, although some wise guys think this is a good thing, going on to bring Microsoft of the mid-90s back from the dead, and the user’s data is locked In/owned by Facebook .

Now, Scott Carp, an A-lister in my book, writes that Facebook is NOT for Business.

…business and professional needs are NOT the same as personal needs. I have no need to “poke” my professional colleagues or specify that our working relationship began when we “hooked up.” I don’t need to know about my professional colleagues what gender they are interested in mating with, or what they are looking for in a relationship, or what their favorite TV shows are...

They used to say a normal human being doesn’t make more than 1000 acquaintances in his/her lifetime. Social Networking sites are putting this amateur theory to test and we seeing the first signs of a Friend backlash, a glut of friends, if you will. Scott Carp writes,

We’re experiencing friends overload, and it’s a tragedy of the commons. The practice of friending has morphed way beyond the term’s original intention and utility. And that is why I declare friends — at least in the social-networking context — passé.

As a coincidence. six major advertisers withdrew advertisements from Facebook, after the ads appeared on a British National Party page, which at first glance is silly, because no one puts the ad there deliberately, blame automation for that. However, this is a sign of things to come, as Facebook grapples with the delicious problem of hwo to monetize the traffic resulting from ‘people poking each other’.

When a VC like Fred Wilson promotes Facebook’s superman-like powers because his daughter happens to love it, think twice before swallowing the generalizations. Facebook has a long way to go before it can somewhat more useful to professionals, LinkedIn Facebook is not. Del.icio.us Facebook is not.

Labels: facebook, social networking

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:06 PM