Facebook and LinkedIn
Recently I updated my LinkedIn profile and signed up to Facebook. I’ve never been that keen on social networking - perhaps due in part to the embarrassing lack of friends and professional contacts. ;-) However, I really like last.fm because it has a clear purpose, well defined areas, a good interface and a clean design. Connections can be made on the rarest of tracks that you post a journal entry on, for example.
This weekend I noticed a few articles / posts about LinkedIn and the possibility of opening their platform to developers. This would be quite cool - several nice apps have been added to Facebook that I now use. However, some have been commenting on what Facebook can do to attract some of LinkedIn’s market. It’s an interesting discussion at the moment. Nick O’Neill points out that you can control which friends view what on Facebook now, and if this was extended to specify business and leisure relationships it could negate the need for profiles on social and professional networks.
Nick also describes how on LinkedIn there is currently an absence of distractions in user’s profiles, and opening up for applications could result in something similar to what Nicholas Deleon describes today on CrunchGear.
Facebook was started for college and university students (although now anyone can join), and LinkedIn for professionals. I really like both networks and now I have up-to-date profiles on both will continue with them. LinkedIn has my positions, competencies and other professional information, and I really like that it informs me my profile is only 25% complete, with guidance on how to improve this. Another simple but useful feature is the ability to download a profile as a PDF. Facebook has my favourite music, events, groups and so on. All the information I see when I log in relates to personal updates from friends, and the groups I belong to have great members, focussed topics and no spam.
For the foreseeable future, I definitely see my relationships and profiles remaining separate. Both are great social networks that I enjoy using. If you’re on either, you’ll find me on the links in the right hand menu.
Update: The second paragraph got a little confused and has been corrected.
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