In This Article
Subscribe to Technology Updates
Wall Street Crisis Pushes Business Networking Sites Ahead of Facebook
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Two business-focused social networking sites, LinkedIn and Xing, are booming thanks to an increase in traffic from users fearing—or already experiencing—job losses.
Online Business Networking Moving Forward in Economic Downturn
Business-focused sites LinkedIn and Xing have carved themselves a social networking niche in the face of job cuts across the job market. According to The Economist, the two sites have been attracting new members at “breakneck speed” and have figured out how to turn a profit, “in contrast to mass-market social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.”
Silicon Valley-based LinkedIn, founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, has recently gotten $53 million in venture capital funding. The company does not release the details of its balance sheet. However, The Economist’s sources have noted that this year the networking site may have garnered a sizeable portion of its $100 million in yearly revenues from hiring companies and headhunters.
As for Xing, which is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, 80 percent of its revenue is from subscription fees. Users are charged 6 euros, or about $9 a month, to use the site. The site, which The Economist says has a “distinctly Germanic feel,” pulled in 16 million euros, or about $24 million in profit this year.
LinkedIn founder Hoffman told The Economist, “Most users of social networks have a lot of disposable time, but not much disposable income. With professionals it is the other way around.”
This being said, no price beats free, which Facebook remains. And the site does cast a wider net. Once primarily used to find pictures of long-lost friends from elementary school, Facebook can foster professional connections and a tool to search for employment.
The faltering economy has caused enterprising people of all ages to turn to Facebook as a way to spread information. Christine Pon Chin, a real estate buyer, said that Facebook helped her find “additional buyers and sellers for the future.”
Only two years ago, students were concerned that potential employers would judge them based on their Facebook pages, a practice they felt would be “unethical.”
Those who still use the social networking site for primarily personal rather than professional reasons worry about protocol when they are “friended” by their bosses.
Silicon Valley-based LinkedIn, founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, has recently gotten $53 million in venture capital funding. The company does not release the details of its balance sheet. However, The Economist’s sources have noted that this year the networking site may have garnered a sizeable portion of its $100 million in yearly revenues from hiring companies and headhunters.
As for Xing, which is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, 80 percent of its revenue is from subscription fees. Users are charged 6 euros, or about $9 a month, to use the site. The site, which The Economist says has a “distinctly Germanic feel,” pulled in 16 million euros, or about $24 million in profit this year.
LinkedIn founder Hoffman told The Economist, “Most users of social networks have a lot of disposable time, but not much disposable income. With professionals it is the other way around.”
This being said, no price beats free, which Facebook remains. And the site does cast a wider net. Once primarily used to find pictures of long-lost friends from elementary school, Facebook can foster professional connections and a tool to search for employment.
The faltering economy has caused enterprising people of all ages to turn to Facebook as a way to spread information. Christine Pon Chin, a real estate buyer, said that Facebook helped her find “additional buyers and sellers for the future.”
Only two years ago, students were concerned that potential employers would judge them based on their Facebook pages, a practice they felt would be “unethical.”
Those who still use the social networking site for primarily personal rather than professional reasons worry about protocol when they are “friended” by their bosses.
Background: The evolution of Facebook
More casual uses of Facebook could be potentially damaging to the future professional success of recent college graduates. In a 2006 study, 40 percent of employers said they would take into account a candidate’s Facebook profile during the hiring process. In some cases, companies have rescinded job offers after viewing a candidate’s profile. Students found the practice “unethical” and Conor Geary, then a sophomore at Siena College, started a Facebook group called, “Dear Employer: I’m an Upstanding Individual Despite My Facebook Pictures.” Chris Wiley, one of the study’s authors said, “Facebook is just a small part of the bigger issue of privacy and the Internet.”
Source: US News and World Report
“Tech gossip” blog ValleyWag posted Ryan Kuder’s minute-by-minute Twitter account of the hours leading up to his layoff from Yahoo. According to The New York Times, the posts, plus founding a Facebook group called, “I worked at Yahoo! Until Yesterday,” inspired calls from a Microsoft recruiter and helped Kuder find a partner for a new Internet company.
Source: Valley Wag
Related Topics: Facebook at the office
The Boston Globe reports that Facebook’s “fastest-growing segment is people age 25 and older, and more than half of its total users are outside college.” Employees are now placed in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to accept their boss’s friend requests on the social networking site. Employees tend to feel that their privacy will be invaded, but Paul F. Levy, president and chief executive officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, explained, “It's fun, a nice way to communicate with a group of people who might not otherwise interact with me.”
Source: The Boston Globe (free registration may be required)
A recent poll conducted in Australia indicated that many workers would not accept a job if they couldn’t use social networking sites at the office. In addition, research indicates that people using Facebook and other social-networking tools at their place of business do so mainly in a professional, not a personal, context.
Source: findingDulcinea
Most Recent Beyond The Headlines
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
