

Why LinkedIn is More Valuable than Facebook - andymism
http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2011/02/16/why-linkedin-is-more-valuable-than-facebook/

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jmspring
The article is pretty much a joke. It argues for the analytics and processes
LinkedIn can help enterprise customers with. In reality, LinkedIn really is
more like a replacement for Monster, Dice, etc. Most people use it as a way to
either get their resume out or for people hiring to find people.

As a user, unless I pay, the site really offers me little. Groups are kinda
eh, I can hook in my twitter stream, etc. The amount of content generated
beyond one's profile is significantly lower than that of Facebook. Is a lot of
what is posted on FB fluff? Maybe, but people generate content and engage with
the service.

Furthermore, what LinkedIn provides the user is pretty stagnant. There isn't a
way to determine if someone claims proficiency in a certain skill or a certain
role, how good are they actually? We've started to finally see some
interesting competition / augmentations with BranchedOut (on FB, of all
things) and MixTent (built a top of LinkedIn).

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andymism
Agreed. On top of that, the discussion about time in app is an implicit straw
man. It's no surprise that one set of metrics might be more important to
LinkedIn versus for Facebook, but the relative importance of a set of metrics
for two different businesses targeting different audiences is a weak argument
for their relative valuations.

Facebook has fundamentally changed the way millions interact with their social
circle; LinkedIn's impact is smaller by far. I find this a pretty simple
explanation for much of the difference in their valuations.

