Why Does LinkedIn Still Have Facebook Envy?
Commentary on this week's management changes at LinkedIn implied that a shake-up was needed to make LinkedIn more like Facebook. As somebody who has used LinkedIn extensively and spoken to many people who have also found it very useful, this is a plea to listen to users and not the Valley cognoscenti. Sure, when Facebook was "valued" at $15 billion, a bit of envy was understandable. But now that we're in the real world...
We Don't Want to Spend More Time on LinkedIn
We want to spend as little time as possible so that we can get the job done, get off our computers, and have a life. LinkedIn is the most efficient place to hunt for customers and employees. It is the first real change in productivity for those who work on the front lines of business. We have written about how useful it is here and here, and we included LinkedIn in our Top 10 Enterprise Products for 2008.
So, repeat after me: LinkedIn is not a destination site. 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.
LinkedIn should be a "contact graph," accessible via the API tools that you need to get the job done.
Why Emulate Facebook?
When Facebook was nominally valued at $15 billion, envy was understandable. Now, word is that Facebook is worth more like $1 billion. And to prove I am not a recent jumper on the Facebook downward-rolling bandwagon, here is my bear case on Facebook from July 2007.
LinkedIn won't ever beat Facebook on page views. So why try? Beat it by being more useful. And then business people will pay.
SaaS businesses have been the quiet success story of 2008 and will romp home to glory in 2009. It is the perfect disruptive model for a downturn.
LinkedIn could be a great SaaS success story by mixing and integrating the right features to become the place where business people live and pay for services.
Contact Networking
Add a touch of integration with email, a pinch of basic CRM capabilities. Roll it all up into the biggest business contact graph on the planet. Ask $5 of each user per month, the "Google price." Juice up the returns with some transactional services, making money by connecting people.
If there is one company in the tech space I would own shares in if I could, it would be LinkedIn. As long as it stops trying to appeal to college kids.
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Somethings up here....I think there are aquisitions in the breeze. I predict the next 3 sites to be aquired -
www.linkedin.com
www.realmatch.com
www.indeed.com
I disagree about Linkedin never beating Facebook. Social networks have short shelf lives, so who is to say a revamped LinkedIn couldn't replace Facebook?
Remember when MySpace was going to be the dominant network that would never be replaced?
LinkedIn beating Facebook? Even with a miracle, that will not happen.
Based on Quantcast, Facebook has about 51 million users (active) per month and Linkedin has only 9 million per month (US data)
Based on Compete, Facebook has about 49 million users (active) per month and Linkedin has only 7 million per month (US data)
For Linkedin to catch up with Facebook (while Facebook is adding 600,000 users per day), LinkedIn needs more than just a management shakeup.
Besides, there is something fishy going on at Linkedin with this management shake up and 2 large rounds of funding, especially when LinkedIn brags about their position revenue model.
I use linkedin but not facebook though I got sucked into it by some friends. I just didn't find value with facebook and the social aspect doesn't appeal to me. LinkedIn has its place and its a good one. I think it would push away a lot of its base if it tried to become more social.
I do think adding some more CRM features would really help it; could possibly even charge for a pro level service and synching features. ..but I really hope they don't try to become another face-site.
Great post! I definitely agree with you that LinkIn does not have to compete with Facebook in regard to the amount of time spend.
I don't spend a lot of time on LinkIn but I have been contacted multiples on LinkIn regarding job perspectives.
The kind of position that are not posted on regular job sites.
I would have no problem paying a monthly fee to use LinkIn in comparison to Facebook.
Your comments are well taken. Of course you proposed a redefined strategy and made LinkedIn about 200% more useful. There are probably six other good strategies for LinkedIn, none of which the company has considered. LinkedIn's big failings startegically were:
1. to remain a closed community while the world moved to sharing information
2. not to promote the expertise of its members and thereby provide them value
3. to lose their first mover advantage to sites that were not even catering to business professionals, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.
4. to be extremely slow to add features with value to members
5. ............
My further thoughts are here http://tinyurl.com/653hog
I agree with the premise of the original post. LinkedIn is not Facebook and vice-versa. There is plenty of room for both and the two should not necessarily resemble each other.
"Remember when MySpace was going to be the dominant network that would never be replaced?"
No.
While I visit Linkedin every day, I seldom log on facebook. Linkedin is sophisticated and is for people that want to socialise as well as conduct serious business.
If Linkedin wishes to lose its niche market, it should try to resemble Facebook and become another platform for spams and junk conversations.
Ndudi
I'm a user of both Fb and Linkedin, but to me they represent two entirely different sets of experiences and networks and to be honest I would not want to mix the two.
I don't understand how these two sites can compete. They have very different audience: Facebook is place where you communicate with friends and LinkedIn is for business networking.
As soon as FaceBook tries to charge its users it will die. LinkedIN on the other hand is worth spending money on monthly.
Funny, I just had that conversation with a friend at lunch yesterday. I use LinkedIn for my business and use my business email and I use FaceBook just for personal things (keeping track of my daughter's usage and connecting with old friends) and I use my personal email only on FB.
Well, I've always thought LinkedIn was just another site to suck all my contacts away to other people. I love the SOCIAL aspect of FaceBook because I actually feel like I'm dealing with real people. On LinkedIn, I get the feeling some schmo is just tacking me onto another marketing/sales list - that wholly impersonal model doesn't work for me; I want to know the people I'm dealing with (ie: yeah, they talk a good game, but can they deliver again and again?). I have accounts on both, but I almost never use LinkedIn.
Couldn't agree more - Linkedin's "what are you working on" was just not required, although slideshare integration was great. Linkedin should hone its offering to professional social networking.
I'd cite Plaxo as another great utility that went absolutely off the rails trying to become friendfeed.
Definitely not the same! We use Linkedin and do not use Facebook. However, we would love to see an article about how we can get the greatest benefits from Linkedin.
What is needed to be understood is that LInkedin and Facebook are completely different. Here is the case: Linkedin is not a social network or a business network, it is simply a tool to be a productive professional, so why in the world would they want to appeal to scrappy college kids? Facebook is going to be friendster sooner or later.
While I agree with most of the article, Linked In has a long way to go towards ultimate success. The interface is slow and not intuitive and the search feature is cumbersome at best.
To succeed, Linked In needs to decide what it wants to be and then vigorously pursue that goal. Right now, it is trying to be too many things and not focusing on its core business: connecting business people to conduct business.
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