Social Networks - Do I Have Time For This?
I have a mailbox full of LinkedIn invitations (which I appreciate.) I have an account with LinkedIn, but have never bothered to search someone else out, much less invite anyone else into my “network”. I probably spend more time figuring out if even know the person behind the invitation sent to me than is worthwhile . Now I get Facebook queries. Jeez - how do you Web 2.0 kidz keep up with this stuff? Can I export my LinkedIn profile to Facebook and be done with it? Is there a web app that lets me add a “friend or associate” and bind it everywhere? Who has time for all this platform shifting? Please help.
So, on this post, here’s what people are doing lately: They’re exporting their LinkedIN address books, parsing the emails into hmm… I think it was email comma email … and then importing them into Facebook by clicking on the “invite friends.”
Turns out there are LOTS of people on Facebook. The plusses to Facebook is that there are richer interactions. You can list lots more stuff about you, add all kinds of 3rd party apps that can enrich things (like import your RSS there, import your Flickr, your calendar, your zohowriter, and all kinds of useful things).
Pros: you get a richer connection to people, a status message, a “wall” to leave brief notes, and an in-system message platform.
Negatives: no reputation system like LinkedIN, crappy address book compared to LinkedIN, and in-system only email (you can’t read your mail until you go to FB, versus LinkedIN which emails you the text).
Net-net, I think people are going there, and that it’s important to have at least a small (not ghost town) presence there.