Facebook vs. LinkedIn

One of the hottest trends today is the migration of business people from LinkedIn to Facebook. For years LinkedIn was THE site for professional networking with no serious competition. But it seems that this situation changed and more and more users open profiles in the new and improved Facebook.

Up until recently Facebook was recognized as a personal networking site, and you would connect with your actual friends, and not with your professional contacts. Furthermore, it was restricted for people with an .edu email (Meaning only graduates of American educational institutes could use it).

A few months back, Facebook changed its policy and opened up for people from all around the world. It also announced an open API through which developers can easily create Facebook applications. This caused many people to open a Facebook account, and as more and more created it - the professional networks formed naturally.

For example, I opened my Facebook account just to experience their interface and API first hand, but before I knew it, I received requests from several colleagues... And now my network there contains some people that are not on my LinkedIn network...

I saw several posts in other blogs of people announcing they will cease to update their LinkedIn profile, and move to Facebook only. For example, Jeff Pulver the VoIP prince (who frequents Israel), wrote that in his blog. Paul Walsh wrote a similar post on his blog (and also a funny story about a friend being dumped by his girlfriend on Facebook...)

And since this is a mobile blog, we can't neglect the mobile aspect in which Facebook seems to be a bit ahead over other social networks: Facebook has a great mobile interface that allows viewing profiles via WAP, uploading photos, sending and receiving SMS notifications and much more.

One annoying thing in Facebook is that they allow those vibrating/flashing/blinking advertising saying that I am the 999,999 visitor (again?...) - it really bothers the eye, and I think that they should have a more strict policy on ads.

So for now, I am still not abandoning LinkedIn, since it served me well so far, but this might change if in a few weeks my Facebook network will outgrow my LinkedIn one. So if you want me to leave LinkedIn, look me up on Facebook...