Surprises

Surprises

by Joe Weisenthal


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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.

19 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. Tech folks by Steve on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 11:14am

    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)

  2. Re: Tech folks by Jezsik on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 11:36am

    Thanks for the laugh ... I needed that!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: Tech folks by Cowards -R- Us on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 11:37am

    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)

  4. Re: Re: Tech folks by A different Stephen on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 11:49am

    Geez, thanks for killing that one

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. hm... by silentrite on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 11:53am

    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)

  6. by CJ on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:05pm

    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?


    looks like you need your joke-o-meter recalibrated.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. Re: hm... by some dude on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:06pm

    more professional? i didn't realize attention whoring was a professional business

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. bad idea by Hairball on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:08pm

    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)

  9. re: hm.. by chris on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:17pm

    "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)

  10. Select companies by Sean on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:18pm

    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)

  11. Re: Select Companies by Jeff on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 12:45pm

    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)

  12. uhh by tk. on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 1:07pm

    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)

  13. Re: Select companies by Another baseless comment on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 2:24pm

    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)

  14. Re: Re: hm... by Anonymous Coward on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 6:41pm

    whoring is one of the world's oldest professional businesses

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  15. by Dan on Apr 27th, 2006 @ 10:00pm

    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)

  16. My analysis of facebook adding companies from Augu by Doug Sherrets on Apr 28th, 2006 @ 10:15am

    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)

  17. Doug, you were right, and here is why by Judah Wilson, CEO Top20Network.com on Apr 30th, 2006 @ 10:54am

    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)

  18. nd more. From website . by vrdjipi@mail.ru on Aug 3rd, 2006 @ 4:31am

    ringtones free

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  19. s by Anonymous Coward on Aug 3rd, 2006 @ 4:31am

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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