Why Does Facebook Make Young Men Swoon?
In debunking Fortune’s David Kirkpatrick love letter to Mark Zuckerberg, I noted yesterday that the 23 year old ex-college student’s most valuable attribute is the ability to make grown men swoon.
Today, we see that young men are far from immune to the Facebook love bug!
Nick O’Neill pens one of the many indistinguishable–and unreliable–”unoffiicial” Facebook blogs: Today he unoffiicially takes credit for sparking what he deems to be an official Facebook “killer” strategy.” Killer, as in death to LinkedIn, in true Facebook love form.
The big, bad O’Neill Facebook “killer” scoop? Twenty-four words publicly posted by the Zuckerberg team on Facebook’s “What’s New” page for “in the works”:
Sort out your friends. We’ll let you organize that long list of friends into groups so you can decide more specifically who sees what.
For O’Neill, one public, but vague, Facebook functionality preview is proof enough that Facebook is indeed determined to “put the nail in LinkedIn’s coffin,” as O’Neill wished for in June, when he pilied on the blogosphere’s INACCURATE reporting of LinkedIn’s API plans.
Not only did O’Neill envisage LinkedIn doomed, but “the end of most social networks” to boot!
O’Neill is now salivating because he believes Facebook has “heeded his advice” and will be diligently working toward “putting an end to LinkedIn.”
Towards his death to LinkedIn wish, O’Neill solicits the Web:
Are you going to stop using LinkedIn when this new feature comes out?
Poor O’Neill, though! He is not getting the who needs LinkedIn rally he was counting on. Commenters are raining on O’Neill’s death to LinkedIn parade, big time:
Louis Gray: LinkedIn is for professionals. Facebook is for fun. That’s not going to change, even with categories. And LinkedIn can add categories as well. It’s not that big a deal.
Mike: I see a lot of activity on facebook really geared towards showing off and seeing who can show to be the most outrageous person or cool person or who drank the most. I dont think that this activity works too well for serious business networking.
Tom: The reality is that Facebook has a big tech following but most people in other business areas don’t take it too seriously. It’s the equivalent of MySpace in that they see it as more of a kid’s toy. LinkedIn on the other hand has a reputation as a network for making business connections and I think that marketing advantage will be enough to keep them alive for years to come.
WHY DOES LINKEDIN CONTINUE TO BE THE PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING DESTINATION OF CHOICE? READ MY EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Reid Hoffman On How LinkedIn Beats Facebook for Business
ALSO: David Kirkpatrick to Mark Zuckerberg: How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways and With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies?
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