Tag: LinkedIn

  • Its complicated

    ..and a bit long 🙂

    What do you do when you can’t buy a service? If you have the capability, you build it yourself. That seems to be what Facebook is up to, triggering of what would perhaps be only the first of the battles for real time supremacy. When you log in to Facebook, you can see the message right at the top “Changes to the Home Page are coming soon”, and the link gives you a preview of what to expect on Wednesday. Keeping in mind Facebook’s history of design changes, its not going to be a democratic process like the TOS incident. Change will happen, whether we need it or not.

    So, what are these changes? RWW has a good post that captures the main features. The publishing bar is extremely similar to Friendfeed – Facebook’s favourite idea shop (the newsfeed, comments on the newsfeed, the like feature are all from there), and users can now publish photos, links, videos from here without going to the application. The homepage will now have the newsfeed in the centre (with better filtering features basis their relationship with friends, groups and even applications) When I wrote about Twitter saying no to the Facebook deal, I’d asked for a twitter like ‘Follow’ feature in Facebook, and now thats happening. Thanks to the updated privacy settings, you can follow a person’s updates without being his/her friend. The cap of 5000 friends is also going to be removed. Most importantly, the newsfeed is going to be real-time. Fan pages are changing too, and can brands/personalities (or whatever you’re a fan of) will now be normal profiles and can update their status, and if you permit, your newsfeed will be updated too. So yes, Britney will tell you, on your newsfeed, that she’s having a concert wherever!! I wonder if these changes will make a difference to the existing not-so-great engagement statistics between fans and their objects of fandom. Lastly, I read on TechCrunch that apps on Facebook will now be able to use the live chat functionality, giving them the chance to make an app go viral faster.

    So that’s what Facebook’s been upto. Sometime back, I read an article which compared Twitter to Palm. To summarise, Palm, which used to be a consumer darling for a long time, lost out when it refused to overcomplicate its products, while competitors solved the issues that had made them unsatisfactory. Twitter, thankfully hasn’t been idle. It has been working on its integrated search for sometime, and is now rolling it out (on a few profiles) with a search bar and a trends button. Meanwhile, there has been some speculation about Google buying Twitter. Google should definitely be interested considering Twitter’s prowess in real time search. As this Adage article says, its way beyond the contextual search that Google offers.

    In the future, searches won’t only query what’s being said at the moment, but will go out to the Twitter audience in the form of a question, like a faster and less-filtered Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers. Users would be able to tap the collective knowledge of the 6 million or so members of the Twitterverse.

    (In that context, check out TwitterThoughts, its a work of art!! And if you’re the kind who misses the real time style of Twitter on google search, you will love this greasemonkey script. Amazing!!)

    While Twitter has been growing exponentially – a whopping 752% in 2008, Facebook has too – though at a relatively more normal 86%. I remember reading sometime back that Facebook was about 15 times larger than Twitter, and that if Facebook were to stop growing today, and Twitter were to add users at the best rate its shown so far, it would still take Twitter 36 years to catch up.

    Very subjectively, and from a user’s perspective, Facebook and Twitter are not competitors. My involvement with my Facebook friends is quite different from that with my Twitter friends, and I don’t have a lot of overlap. But I know a lot of users who have a huge overlap. I actually share a lot more stuff on Twitter and get a lot more stuff from there too. But I am only one user and perhaps represent a minority of typical Facebook usage patterns. For example, The Inquisitr had a good story on how tweets got more responses on Facebook than Twitter itself.

    I am always on Twitter thanks to the browser plug in, irrespective of whether i actively take part or not, I login to Facebook a few times every day. I have to wonder if real time on Facebook can change that. In Facebook, profiles/groups/chat are the bases of conversations – quite well defined spaces. In Twitter, the stream is the base, you start from anywhere. There are different clients that can be used to log into Twitter, Facebook (with a couple of exceptions) has to be accessed from its own homepage.

    Also, from a new user point of view, Facebook provides more ways to interact than the one size fits all approach of Twitter’s ‘What are you doing’?  When you log on to FB, you most likely already have friends who’re there, and you find more friends (who you know in real life), therefore the context and common interests already exist.  You have a base from where to start. Twitter perhaps works in reverse, since you have to make friends (common interests and therefore conversations) on Twitter. Maybe all this contributes to why you have to explain Twitter to people, and they still say ‘Yeah, but what do you DO there?’, and people automatically take to Facebook. Even if thats not the case, relatively, ‘learning the ropes’ is easier on Facebook than Twitter. Thats generalisation and debatable too.

    Facebook’s redesign and policy changes have sparked off user outrage in the past, Twitter (except for the whale) is smoother, perhaps it hasn’t deviated from the original approach much – even the new set of changes doesn’t affect the user much, only adds value to his usage. Is it a difference of intent – Facebook being pure social networking, and Twitter being on a meta plane – higher? Or are the differences merely a function of time in the market and user base? Interestingly, in a recent research with 200 social media leaders on which service they were willing to pay for, Facebook came first with 31.2%, Twitter was third with 21.8%, behind LinkedIn. (via TechCrunch)

    Users are one side of the story, the other side is made up of advertisers. In the survey I mentioned above, when the same social media leaders were asked which service they would reccommend businesses to pay for, Twitter topped with 39.6%, Facebook was third at 15.3%, LinkedIn separated the two again. Every week, developers bring out a new tool that augments/complements Twitter usage and helps the service cater better to users, and perhaps brands too. Meanwhile, Facebook is working on a combination of Facebook Connect and Facebook Ads, to create a social ad network. It seems quite possible that just like users, brands also will differ in their usage of the two services. Some might adopt the same practices, some might vary, and use each to complement the other. It could also be that they would cater to different kinds of advertisers altogether, just like my friends list. More on that next week.

    until next time, never the twain shall meet?

  • LinkedIn…a bit more

    A few weeks back, RWW had an interesting piece on why LinkedIn shouldn’t have Facebook envy, and should not attempt to make itself a destination site like the social networking service.

    We thought the Valley intelligentsia long ago proclaimed the end of destination sites. The desire to “get people to spend more time on LinkedIn” is linked to a failed business model around advertising.

    I agree that just because people spend time at a site doesnt necessarily mean that advertising makes a great business model there. In the early days of Facebook, apps like Scrabulous made me spend a lot of time there. I’ve noticed that (at least among my friends) the usage of apps has lessened, and there’s much more sharing – notes, photos, comments on status messages etc. If advertising is the revenue model, brands and FB would have to do a lot more than just contextual banner advertising.

    I’m not quite sure whether the same would apply for LinkedIn. Not in terms of the advertising bit, but in terms of the time spent. Again, while I agree with RWW on the accessibility via API tools, I’m a bit ambivalent on the need for spending time on the site first. Perhaps it might make sense to offer services that are first utilised on the site, and then made convenient. Once the users are more familiar with the tools and services, they’d be more comfortable with connecting to it via mail or say, a browser plugin etc. Ambivalent, because my usage of Twitter via twitterfox screams an opposing view (but not every service is as simple as Twitter)

    While I use at least one LinkedIn app, and utilise the status message quite frequently, I believe that a lot more can be done with the ‘News’ and ‘Groups’. Yes, it does have features like ‘share articles’, ‘start discussion’ etc, but I think there’s definitely more potential. The best reference I could find is Social Median (recently acquired by Xing). Now, I admit that my usage of that site was pretty limited, but I still think it was only a matter of time before i utilised it much more. Somehow it appealed more than say a Friendfeed room.

    I also think that the limited usage was because I was connected with a similar set of people on twitter who used to share links on the topics I was interested in. This, and the paucity of time, made a visit to Social Median a postponed task. Now considering that LinkedIn is best placed to offer tangible benefits (business networking, as opposed to social networking), what if the Social Median kind of tools (like the browser add on to share sites) and services (like adding feeds to groups) were introduced on LinkedIn.

    Now, you might say that we do roughly the same on say, Friendfeed. The difference is that in the case of LinkedIn, the adoption would be much more, because professionals interested in say, Social Media would find it easier to join a group, and have discussions on LinkedIn than joining a relatively geekier service like Friendfeed. Also, the different kind of groups that could happen on LinkedIn is much more since it already has professionals from a variety of streams, and each of them could create their own networks. The tangible gains from such a network even in daily office work is easy to imagine. This would also be immensely useful for those who’d like to gather information about career streams different from their own. In fact, this wonderful post also shows how brands can utilise content aggregation to their benefit. The thing to note here is that LinkedIn would need to provide enough tools so that the groups don’t become stagnant like that on Facebook. But I’m guessing it won’t, since most people would like to offer insightful comments, and share the best links, because its a business network, one that’d help their careers.

    until next time, a link book 🙂

  • Brands among sheep

    A few days back, I read a post on Adage, about how Facebook has become a place to collect friends. A large part of the post was about how people one barely knew became ‘friends’, how we all seem to be involved in each others’ lives in superficial ways, merely by sharing stuff we do, how we are failing to live the moment because we have to update our status first. 🙂 Not surprisingly, he was burnt at the comments stake.

    At some level, the author is right about the ‘collecting friends’ part. This would explain the success of Burger King’s ‘Whopper Sacrifice‘ app, in which sacrificing (deleting) 10 friends would get you a sandwich.  Somehow, Facebook didn’t seem to find it that cool, and took action.  Meanwhile, Facebook has been trying its bit to customise the news feed by allowing ‘more/less about’ options for status updates. In addition to the grouping of friends, an obvious Orkut like classification of friends, acquaintances etc might help too. Meanwhile, I read about what seems an interesting new network that aims to put an end to the random friend addition – hipstr.

    Meanwhile, the post actually did raise a couple of interesting queries, which were lost in what was seen as an anti-Facebook rant – one, in this communication avalanche that’s happening among consumers, is it possible for brands to squeeze in their communication at all? And are friends becoming the new platform for advertising? I’ve seen several Facebook ads that use friends as an ad platform, and most of the ads that I see with my friends’ endorsement are without their knowledge. (xyz uses abc app) I dont think that’s the scalable model we’d want.

    The easy answer to the first question (as described in many comments) is context and value creation. But in terms of advertising, I think (and this is highly debatable) Facebook lacks a definite context. I update, I share photos, I write on the Wall, I play a few word games, try a quiz out and so on. So I wonder whether context can play as good a role as it does on search, because the intent for which I frequent Facebook is completely different. It made me wonder if an all encompassing generic network like Facebook will find it difficult to be of commerical use? Like I commented on a good discussion on social media we had on Twitter, perhaps, in the realms of social networking, the scope is for vertical networks (there are many which’ve already popped up) that cater to more specific interests. The version 1 of that would be LinkedIn (business networking). The scope for context and value addition could be much greater there.

    But perhaps better mining over a period of time will give feasible solutions like say, integrating the birthday calendar with a gifting opportunity. So if my friend abc has his birthday today, and is a fan of a particular product/service on Facebook, then Facebook will ask me if I want to gift him that product/service. No, not just virtually, really. Or say, a status update of mine says I’m having a house party, and the Pizza Hut app sends me a mail asking me if I’d want to consider its services. Of course, design, privacy issues etc are to be kept in mind.

    I’m also hoping that the above premise will be taken to a whole new level with Facebook Connect. Mashable had a good post a few days back on 10 great implementations of Facebook Connect. It includes a traditional media brand (CNN) and an energy drink brand (Red Bull). Perhaps Connect will bring in the much required context.

    until next time, dont throw a sheep 😉

  • Talking Shop

    My post last week– on the topic of communities that individuals will initiate or will be part of, also made me think of organisations and brands, and what communities they would start/be part of. To begin with, perhaps there would have to be forks in the road, which hopefully would merge again at some point of time. Paths to accommodate employees, potential employees, consumers, suppliers and so on.

    If word of mouth is the primary marketing tool, it is important to get the organisation in order, and employees to believe in themselves and the place they work in, before transparency can be taken to the outside world. According to this RWW article, based on an Accenture report,  a large number of millenials (those born between 1977-97) expect their companies to accommodate their IT preferences, and if they don’t, they turn rogue and use technology that is unsupported and unsanctioned by their corporate IT departments. Social networks are great examples, according to the study, 59% use them inspite of their IT!!

    I’d written on this subject earlier, highlighting a few tools, that could help bring transparency to the employee and potential employee facing part. Recently, I came across a few more things that would help in these efforts. SocialCast (via Startup Meme), which provides ‘simple, smart messaging for team communication’. Meetsee, “Your personal virtual office ..filled with rich ways to communicate, share content, collaborate on documents, and build rapport between remote co-workers”. I also read that LinkedIn has made portions of company profiles public. As of now, they have 160000 profiles. I quite liked the career path feature under ‘Related Companies’. (eg.Take a look at Amazon’s profile.) What I’d like to see is companies taking this as an opportunity to converse more than a one way communication. LinkedIn can actually make a premium service out of this. Companies could also start off with using some existing apps on LinkedIn like Company Buzz, presentation apps, Huddle and Polls, each of which could add dimensions to their LinkedIn presence.

    On another front, brands are still grappling on how to utilise social media to reach out to their consumers. The question of where to have these conversations also still hangs. Both would obviously depend on the intent. Unfortunately, a lot of brands are seeing social media as just another broadcasting platform – a mentality of  ‘ah, the herd is on twitter, lets push the communication there’. Judging from the way the crowd responds to say (the most recent example) Ibibo, #FAIL.

    Like I said, it boils down to intent – making better products, addressing customer issues, using customers for R&D and so on. Chris Brogan has a wonderful post on what he calls ‘cafe shaped conversations‘. It made me consider the perspective that its perhaps not meant for every brand/organisation. That while there are advantages, for these advantages to achieve a scale that makes it worthwhile, might take quite some time for some organisations, because they aren’t built that way (?)

    But its also true that consumers don’t wait for the brand/company to start the conversation. And they like to band together. The communities at Facebook and Ning are great examples. I also came across a new site – Brand Adda, a community that revolves around brands, products and services. I first thought a 2.0 version of something like MouthShut but there new features added, which also allows for interaction initiated by the brand. Explained well in their FAQ. Perhaps they’re closer to GetSatisfaction. From a brand perspective, the conversation tools might be easier to handle than say, a SocialToo, which allows polls on Twitter. I’d like to see how this develops, since there’s definitely potential.

    The tools, irrespective of which stakeholder they address, are becoming increasingly significant. According to a recent study by Forrester, the % of people who trust the company blog as a new source is at a low 16%, right at the bottom of the table. This, I agree, is not a reflection on the concept of blogging, but more on the intent of companies which in turn, is translated into the content they post on the blog. And the path – blogs, twitter, LinkedIn etc are quite inconsequential if the intent is not sorted out first.

    until next time, connecting people…and companies..

    PS. A good resource on social media. Go on, there are free e-books.

  • Apperception- LinkedIn

    Apperception – The process whereby perceived qualities of an object are related to past experience.

    Last week, I’d written about some developments in the business networking/enterprise web2.0 space. To make the scenario even more interesting, LinkedIn announced the launch of its applications platform. 9 apps have been launched so far, and they are presentations from Slideshare, and Google Presentations, a reading list app from Amazon, online workspaces from Huddle, a travel networking app from TripIt, blog feeds from WordPress and Blog Link (from Six Apart, powered by Typepad), a file storage, collaboration app from Box.net, and one home production called Company Buzz, to track the twitter talk on your company, trends etc. Going forward, all apps will be screened by LinkedIn to ensure that they are of ‘professional’ nature, and users can add a max of 15 apps on their homepage, this is to prevent clutter. (via Tech Crunch)

    While the app ideas seem cool, I was extremely disappointed with the loading time (I tried WordPress and the Blog Link apps). The WP app also does not work with self hosted blogs, so i was advised by @prateekdayal to try the Blog Links app, but its taking forever to load!! I was thinking of a few apps that LinkedIn could consider – a del.icio.us app which would help me share links with those LinkedIn friends who don’t use the bookmark sharing service, an app from upcoming.org that i could use to share events, even a flickr/youtube app to share pics and videos from conferences, events etc (while hoping that I don’t get to see birthday party pics and videos). Oh, okay , a career daily astrology forecast too 😉 No, it stops there, we really can’t have the ‘Which Office character are you’ app.

    Meanwhile, the apps will have to use LinkedIn’s ad network, so that ensures control on monetising. I also read recently that LinkedIn has another revenue stream which is in trials now – B2B research surveys. The professional crowd is a great sample for market research, and can be targeted according to expertise/audience preferences too. To ensure that users aren’t pissed off, survey solicitations will be limited to one/member/month. Gift cards, opportunity to view survey results, charitable donations and even monetary rewards are being used as participation carrots.Interestingly, Facebook is also one of the networks which has been used to create a system of virtual currency payment in return for participation in online surveys.

    Interesting, because LinkedIn has been profitable since 2006, Facebook still looks at ads as its main revenue stream, and Facebook, for all its popularity hopes it will have a  business model in 3 years. Facebook has MySpace and some would say even orkut competing for the users’ attention, in a generic space, Twitter and Friendfeed, too, but in its space, LinkedIn enjoys a huge, loyal user base. It makes me wonder, if at some point of time – considering the economic scenario and the jitteriness of investors, Facebook will look at alternatives, and provide filters for users to create ‘separate’ profiles for separate audiences (work/friends, for starters). If that happens, and Fb can do the app magic (in the work space) that enahanced its popularity, then LinkedIn might feel the heat!!

    On the flip side, I also wonder if LinkedIn should reflect a bit on fading work-life borders, and how personal and professional interests are learning to co-exist in an individual’s mind without being shoved into separate compartments. This could play a huge role in deciding LinkedIn’s role in a user’s mindspace. I personally feel that because of a very formal approach that LinkedIn seems to have adopted, it doesn’t share the relationship that Facebook enjoys with me. My time on LinkedIn is limited to adding/accepting contacts, and tweaking my profile once in a while. That’s far behind the quantity and quality of time spend and interactions on Facebook. Its not just about the apps, Orkut has them too,  too little, too late and didn’t make any difference to me, its about the overall experience. I am not saying that they should add ‘Superpoke’, but when organisations are becoming more liberal in their outlook and encouraging employees to be personalities , rather than robots, LInkedIn might do well to consider a tweak in its positioning. Perhaps it’s just a design/interface thing, or its a deeper perception about what LinkedIn stands for, but the current image, to me, is neither social nor fun, and that may not be a good thing in the long run. Here’s a good post that talks about infusing some fun into LinkedIn.

    I think its fair to say that just like it has in reality, in virtuality too, personal and professional lives will overlap, whether they co-exist or compete, only time will tell.

    until next time, will LinkedIn be semi formal on fridays? 😉