

Is underdog LinkedIn poised to beat flashy Facebook? - prakash
http://www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2008/10/27/27idg-Is-underdog-Lin.html

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compay
That's like saying organic brown rice is going to replace sugar.

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angstrom
I signed up for both in 2005. I haven't used FB since. I still use LinkedIn.

FB is a liability to your career, LinkedIn is not. LinkedIn captures the
social network that matters to business. FB captures the social network that
matters to pyramid schemes.

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mcargian
Serious question: what do you do on linked in? What business value do you get?

I know several recruiters and speakers who use LinkedIn with great success.
But outside of those two fields, most of the people I talk to use linkedin as
a glorified rollodex and nothing more. I would be really interested in
examples of what you have used it for.

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angstrom
Both in job hunting and filling positions. It goes both ways. Rather than
trying to capture everything social it has focused on just capturing the
career network and doing it well. If I'm on LinkedIn it's for a reason: Jobs.

If I'm on Facebook it could be any number of reasons all of which probing
raises privacy concerns.

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mcargian
So, how often are you on linkedin then? every two years? Or how often do you
change jobs?

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angstrom
Depends, like I said. I've used it both in job hunting and filling positions
that are open. In the case where I was job hunting I did searches on the
people who interviewed me either before (if I happened to know who I was
meeting with) or after the interviews.

I even searched for people I didn't interview with, but were listed as having
worked for the same company with similar job titles. It's a good way gauge the
caliber of the people they've hired to work there.

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pg
Is underdog Yahoo poised to beat flashy Google?

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mdasen
It's true that it's unlikely, but LinkedIn has been able to do something that
Facebook hasn't - monetize. Search had been around for a long time, but Google
is who made it really profitable. So, there is a chance that this is more like
Google and Yahoo circa 2000 where it was underdog Google and flashy Yahoo.

Granted, being able to monetize doesn't matter to your users, but if you keep
running through your VC, you eventually can't keep up development at the same
pace.

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rodmaz
Let's do an interesting exercise. Facebook has 100 million users. Let's
suppose 10% of that user base would be willing to pay a $1.99 to have a
premium account (like unlimited number of photo albuns, customizable look&feel
etc). That would mean almost $20m dollars monthly revenue, much much larger
than their burn-rate. College students don't pay for SMS? Why some of them
wouldn't then pay this small amount to Facebook? Sure, this is a very rough
estimation based on old subscription-based business model. A product in a free
market operates much differently than if you charge US$ $.01. But it only
shows that Facebook has many ways to become successfully profitable. They are
only being cautious.

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aston
10% conversion rate would be astronomical for a site like Facebook.

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netcan
These calculations are sorta dangerous.

Online Newspaper X has over 20m online readers. Most of them have at some
point subscribed to print publications @ $200+ per year. If it was a
membership site at just $2 per month, wouldn't they be able to keep some
readers? 10%? 5%?.

You're not telling me someone making $80k per year would replace the newspaper
she reads every day to to save a few cents a read?

Wouldn't people pay to use google? What if it was just $0.50 a month? or $0.01
per search?

The concept that if people use a site, it's worth money, has not proved
itself.

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Mistone
LI has always been a mystery to me. I find little reason to be there often,
its a place I turn in need, or to do a little catch up but is so rare.

fb is a daily stop, while frivolous entertainment, i find it fun and therefore
valuable.

the two a clearly different - linkedin is networking/contacts tool, fb is a
social network.

