RSS
Twitter
Trying To Justify That $2 Billion Pricetag, Facebook Expands Beyond Students
from the now-more-like-myspace dept
Here's one you couldn't see coming. Social-networking site Facebook is expanding beyond high school and college users. However, instead of just opening it up to anyone, which might rob it of its uniqueness, they're opening it up to employees at select corporations. So now, instead of it just being a tool to allow a student to hook up with that person in their Gender in the Fin De Siecle class, someone in sales at Intuit can flirt with their cute colleague in HR. It's no surprise that they want to expand their userbase. The company is open that they want to sell out for $2 billion, while at the same time there's evidence that their traffic is flagging. They may have waited too long, however, to go after this market. Lots of me-too starupts want to be the MySpace of the enterprise.
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
Tech folks
Given that the attention span of the average techie these days is about one wee...ohhh...loook....a router...
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Tech folks
Thanks for the laugh ... I needed that!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Tech folks
wow.. um, so distracted are you that you cannot even make a point. If you are that distracted, how could you even find the submit button?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: Tech folks
Geez, thanks for killing that one
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
hm...
Not a bad idea, since a lot of the people at my office are on MySpace. At least facebook is a little more professional.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: hm...
more professional? i didn't realize attention whoring was a professional business
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: hm...
whoring is one of the world's oldest professional businesses
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
looks like you need your joke-o-meter recalibrated.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
bad idea
IMO this is not a good move for facebook. Facebook is known for being the college and soon-to-be college student's social networking site. I don't see how expanding to 'select corporations' will help their cause. If i'm going to flirt with a colleague, i'll walk to her cubicle (office if she's really hot) and ask her to dinner or something. I can only imagine the sort of trouble someone will get in with their company by posting something stupid. Like that ever happens, right?
And another thing... who decides who these select corporations are?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
re: hm..
"i didn't realize attention whoring was a professional business"
try working with developers sometime. not only is it a business, appearantly it pays well too.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Select companies
The 'Select Companies' is probably like
What company do you work for? (Insert your company here)
Yeah that is one of them.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Select companies
If you had used Facebook then you would know that you must have a valid email address at the institution that you are supposed to be invloved with. I had to use my student id to regisiter (not my social)...so that leads me to believe that they have some type of agreement with the universities...and I'm sure that businesses would want an even larger level of assurance that someone is infact an employee.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Select Companies
Hum, so I can flirt online with my two collegues?.... Don't think it is for my company.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
uhh
Sweet, another potential URL to add to the company's block list.
I'll buy facebook for a $2B buy in. Then I'd dismantle every little piece of it, because it's becoming so stupid that no one needs to be exposed to it.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
how long till thefacebook gets blamed for someone getting fired a la myspace? i give it 6 months. bets anyone?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
My analysis of facebook adding companies from Augu
Hi,
I wrote about this on August 31, 2005. Check out the article: http://www.minorityrapport.com/2005/08/facebook_for_al.html
I wrote a new post yesterday: http://www.minorityrapport.com/2006/04/fun_it_actually.html
It will be interesting to see the adoption curve at companies.
Doug
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Doug, you were right, and here is why
One word: Branding. The reason it will not work in the corporate world is becuase the branding for the site was solidified when they chose to go for high school students rather than businesses. The first wave of seniors that graduated after Facebook became popular (May of last year) was the market Facebook had to get. Facebook was hot, and a large portion of their users were heading to the corporate world. Facebook missed it, and as soon as privacy issues surfaced, the students that sparked the original movement (students at top 20 schools) stopped using the site. I predict that from here on student usage will steadily decline.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
nd more. From website .
ringtones free
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
s
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Add Your Comment