Facebook to severely wound LinkedIn and foursquare?
Why do folk use Facebook? To look at photographs of their friends, to connect, to chat, to interact with people (and brands), to establish relationships, to provide an identity for themselves, and yes, to do business too.
Why do folk use LinkedIn? To look at profiles of their colleagues, would-be colleagues, to establish relationships, to provide an identity for themselves.
These are all social networks. They all let me engage with others, with LinkedIn having a more business orientation, with Foursquare having location orientation, and Facebook having a bit of everything. At the heart of all of these are (simple) relationships.
Facebook on LinkedIn
Facebook is the elephant of course, though LinkedIn is reasonably sizeable too. But Facebook has the relationships. Not all of the business ones, not yet, but announcements like this may change some of that:
BranchOut launched this evening, a new Facebook application that makes career networking a snap. The application unlocks massive amounts of career data about my friends and friends of friends that was just impossible to get to before.
Search on a company name and see which of your Facebook friends work there (or used to). If those friends have installed the app, you can also see how many of their friends have worked at that company. You can then reach out to them for an introduction if you like.
Facebook on Foursquare
Similarly, while Foursquare is king of the block, Facebook has more of the relationships. If they add location, as promised by the following article, well....
Information has leaked that Facebook is set to roll out location-based features for users and brands as soon as this month. According to Advertising Age, users could see location options any day now.
These features include the ability to check in at various locations, including retail spots and restaurants. We’re unclear as to whether users will be able to add or customize their own locations, but we are fairly positive that this move will put Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla and other location-based services in an uncomfortable position.
The Power is in the Network
Network effects make these things useful. I installed BranchOut and found it somewhat useful, even though none of my friends are on it. (If a friend doesn't join, you don't get "friend of a friend" data). If Facebook records our business data with a semantic edge, as they're doing with Like buttons, movies and IMDB for example (when you Like a movie on IMDB, Facebook notes that you liked it, but also notes that it's a "movie" and not just a "page" on the internet), then what's to stop it swallowing LinkedIn?
Likewise, if they add location check-in, Facebook will immediately be more useful (to me) than Foursquare - the more people who use it (and there are more on Facebook) the better. Network effects.
I don't know how you can compete in the face of a monopoly on our social graph. We need competition, but the right now the power is in the network, and we don't own it.
