I don't think the pageview comparison matters at all because of the use cases of the sites. Facebook = browsing people you don't know. Linkedin = Looking for a specific thing and not necessarily to kill time between class.

I think overall the easiest way for me to explain the success of one or other is answering this question:

1- What is the leading college social network?
2- What is the leading professional social network?

Once certain things are planted in society it is hard to change them.

i recently canceled both my hi5 and myspace accounts and switched to only facebook. as my buddy says "it just work"

we're ma

As a 43 year old, who was an original subscriber to the Linked In beta and continue to the service, I have a comfort level that fakesters and riff-raff don't frequent here. This is the part of your analysis that's missing in terms of the quality of the audience. Also, in a good economy when people have jobs, they tend not to be as active with Linked In--because its core people use the service because it directly helps them.

Facebook on the other hand, will have a more vexing challenge as its user’s age. It will become somewhat of a closed community--you already see it in the snobbery when it was announced that the site would open up to non college graduates, etc. In addition, what is the context for using a service like Facebook if you are my 30+ and have used Linked In.?

I think, strategically, this is dangerous and tricky waters for Facebook and their leaders should be very careful about their focus and priorities. Moreover, there is a lot of negative press about Facebook regarding deviant behavior, harassers, etc. Also, Facebook will have a very difficult time living down its youth persona.

On the other hand, I can see recruiters who are looking to tap new sources of talent use Facebook with a recruiting beach head. But this raises a central question if Zuckerberg and company are clear on their mission. Greed kills, just as does speed kills.

A more plausible approach is to develop a new service and brand identity to create what they believe the future will look like--rather than tinker with the existing platform that is Facebook. Moreover, their leaders should talk to more people outside their immediate demo of fewer than 30, which seems to be the dominant set of users.

A senior executive who is 47 years old, and using Linked In for the last 3 years will likely not switch over to a service his 20 year old daughter uses. This is the fundamental challenge for Facebook and the fact that business people would tend not to take this service seriously given what they likely hear about it, which is much a do about nothing in most cases. When the current set of 20 year olds are 35 or so, this move might take some time, because they will have to earn their stripes before they are "shot-callers" and can influence the fabric of one's network outside of childish, and slanderous actions, which is what you typically get on Facebook.

Comment to Facebook: In sum, this is not about technology. Conduct some scenario planning and ask the difficult questions and see what comes out.

Comment to Linked In: Get closer to your customers and do some viral stuff with real people outside the Valley. Have them talk about the virtues and results of using your service. Then, strategically build partnerships with global organizations that allow them to connect people inside with 1-click. Let's say you work for US Aid and you are on a project in Kenya, and a friend works for the World Bank in Brussels; allow "open connections" to happen instead of charging people, because Facebook will exploit this at some point.

Linked In is already a globally accepted brand; just make it "easier" to connect with people. Focus on simplicity instead of new features and the "real-world" value proposition. In a recent NT Times article that talks about how Microsoft lost its way focusing on technology, both companies (Facebook and Linked In) are in danger of doing the same think if they are not careful. Hope this adds to the fabric of the discussion.

One of the things I was trying to emphasize is that companies will need to swim towards the money. Where do people think the money is? Do we believe that advertisers are happy to spend on targeting college students without direct tangible ROI?

Alex

I've added some additional thoughts on my own blog, here:

http://www.ddmcd.com/competition.html

Over at my own blog 'The Social Web', I've also given my thoughts.

"I think Facebook faces a more serious problem if it wants to challenge LinkedIn. How many professionals would want to associate their social life with their professional life? Especially with a history that includes college? Sure, Facebook users could trawl through and delete embarrassing content and connections. But surely a far better solution would be to keep those two worlds separate in the first place."

I agree that people would not want to associate social and professional life. I am saying that a "clone" of Facebook with some trimmed down features and stronger incentive to comeback to the site to communicate with people would be the path to take.

Surely as is Facebook can not be used for business stuff, but the fact that people spend a lot of time on the site indicates that there are elements that are successful and can be leveraged.

Alex

Very interesting to see how the daily page views curve for LinkedIn has flatlined. I would put this down to the inability of the LinkedIn user interface to accommodate a richer set of features to make it easier to drill down into the network e.g. the need to search one's network by chronological order of connections, the need to be able to annotate connections by adding your own category tags and private reminders or comments e.g. 'Met at the GSM show', or 'Introduced by so and so at CeBIT 2006', or 'Must ask this guy about manufacturing aluminium widgets in China'. What LinkedIn also needs badly is a Searchles style tag cloud user interface ( www.searchles.com) to allow more intuitive browsing. Also notable by their absence are automatic search alerts, e.g. send me an automatic email whenever anyone with Search Engine Optimisation skills from the Washington DC area joins LinkedIn. Without such power tools, users are left wading through treacle in a 2002 time warp. This is especially true of larger LinkedIn networks where a usability glass ceiling is quickly reached once you go beyond a certain number of connections, so the daily page views plateau comes as no surprise at all.

That said, LinkedIn does not need radical change, a little creativity and a drop of oil in the cogs of the user interface would go a long way to allow members better leverage their existing network. As for some kind of morphing towards a FaceBook style social network any time soon? There's no reality in that. The success of LinkedIn has been its singular focus on enabling the user to maintain and build upon the fabric of their work-related professional relationships, whether for further career development, or to facilitate commercial deal flow. FaceBook on the other hand is heavily oriented towards leisure pursuits. Both have their place in the scheme of things, but a combination of the two would be a mongrel, leaving a gaping void in the professional social networking market for a new venture to backfill, emulating the original proven LinkedIn model that worked so well. Hmmm. Now there's an idea...watch this space.

You missed one of linkedin's revenue sources - subscriptions. Recruiters and salespeople are the big users here.

I'm in business development. I've found Linkedin to be very useful both in terms of finding contacts within potential partner companies and receiving unsolicited opportunities.

The "Answers" product is obviously their attempt at encouraging more visits. I think its a good start... asking question is often the first step towards creating business.

I am a strong advocate of LinkedIn. There was no mention of the sideband of groups that are also a driving force of LinkedIn professional appeal. I am a member of couple other ‚Äúsocial‚Ä? networks which are just that ‚Äì ‚Äúsocial.‚Ä? The elements that drive business require a reliable and quality tool which you find in LinkedIn. I believe all that use LinkedIn regularly would agree that they have received great benefits in the use of LinkedIn.

Interesting comparison. Overtime I think Facebook's members might migrate to LinkedIn

I think you may have erred when you said it would be nice if you could sort by degrees of separation. Check the pull down - you can. In fact, in my opinion, that should be the default.

I am a major LinkedIn user and think that the members in the LinkedIn network is what makes it valuable. I use it for business development all the time.