Article: Big Changes Coming to Profile Pages on Facebook

Quoting...

The biggest change: user profiles on the service will evolve from a single, flat and often cluttered page into four tabbed sub-pages dubbed feed, info, photos and applications.

And...

The changes come as Facebook aims to simplify its user pages, which have become as cluttered with applications, photos and information as pages on MySpace — long criticized by visual purists as being a bit too visually chaotic.

For more, read the full article. My take is that this will indeed help with the clutter, which can be the biggest annoyance of Facebook. Will it help Facebook become more popular? Its growth is slowing, which could just be a sign that it has reached its natural saturation.

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Technorati tag: Facebook

Survey reports that hiring managers are turning to online social sites

An article in the May 16, 2008 Central New York Business Journal reports that many hiring managers are turning to online social networkings in order to find new employees. The survey, done by ICR, an independent market research firm, reported that:

...62 percent would turn to professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, and 35 percent would refer to social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace.

Colleen Accetta, branch manager for Robert Half Finance & Accounting, said:

It can't replace the personal touch, obviously. It can't replace the traditional hiring process but it certainly opens the field for you to include employee referrals, working with specialized recruiting firms, just casting a wider net, I believe.

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Technorati tags: Social Networking Tools, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

Lovin' the tools

Last week I was at a conference of 2200+ people where the social networking tools where not just talked about, they were used. The conference generated 300+ blog posts and many photos (3,000+). With more 40 bloggers at the conference, a tremendous amount of content was created that summarized and discussed the sessions as well as provided other information. Since most of the presentations (e.g., PowerPoint) will be online eventually, I wonder if a formal proceedings is needed anymore for this conference. The documents in the proceedings were submitted weeks ago and may not mirror what some people presented. In fact, not everyone submits materials for the proceedings, so what you have access to via the blog posts, etc., is more complete.

The photos allow you to see what the conference really looked like and what the attendees did. If you had never been to this conference and wanted to know what to expect, the photos would tell you!

I haven't used the word "wiki", but there was also a wiki for the conference that was begun months before the conference took place. Many people contributed to the wiki and even more used the information that was placed there.

In addition to those tools, people were using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Meebo and other tools both day and night. People used the tools to talk about the sessions (as they were going on), make plans, ask for help, and do networking.

Did everyone at the conference use these tools? No. And given the problems we had with wifi at the hotel, I'm glad that all 2200+ people weren't trying to blog, twitter, and updated their Facebook status. However, enough people were using the tools so that it had a discernible impact on the conference. More was organized on an ad hoc basis, more was being accomplished and more people were "in the know" even if they weren't using on of the tools.

The result was a very active conference with information flowing freely and quickly. And isn't that what we want?!

What tools will you be using at your next conference? Can you incorporate some of the tools I've mentioned in order to make the information flow more freely?

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Technorati tag: Social Networking Tools

Article: Facebook vs. LinkedIn: Which is better for business?

Which is better for business? ComputerWorld created six business scenarios to see which networking site performed better. While they found no absolute winner, you might read the scenarios and decide to select one site over the other.

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Technorati tags: LinkedIn, Facebook

Facebook Fridays

iLibrarian writes:

Tech company Serena Software is introducing a unique program called “Facebook Fridays” into their corporate routine. Each Friday, employees are encouraged to take an hour to fix up their Facebook profiles and connect with personal and professional contacts (including co-workers) using the social networking software. Serena President and CEO Jeremy Burton is hoping that using Facebook as a company intranet will bring a sense of community to their 800+ global employees.

Read more about what Serena Software is doing here.

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Facebook,

Article: (part 1) Social Networking Tools: Let's Be Social

[This article is divided into three parts: Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3. This article was previously published in the November 2007 issue of the RPCN Newsletter and a version of this article appeared in Oct/Nov issue of the Bulletin of the Information Technology Division/SLA.]

After the presentation I did at RPCN on Sept. 21, I realized that it might be useful to talk more about how I use various online social networking tools and when. I am a firm believer that you need a defined reason (or benefit) to may your use worthwhile, so I am chronicling my benefits in hopes that you might see how they will benefit you.

I spoke about social networking tools in three categories. Some tools help you connect with other people. Others provide ways for you to share information with others. Finally, a growing number of tools facilitate collaborations. A trend is for a tool to work across these three categories and several that I use do just that.

CONNECT

We are used to connect face-to-face, on the phone or via email. Social networking tools allow us to connect in ways that ensure that we are:

• Accessible
• Able to exchange information fast
• In the know and considered part of "the crowd"
• Not "missing in action"

In fact, these tools allow us to be "hyper-linked." You are linked to your colleagues not just in one way, but many ways.

The tools you use to connect to your colleagues will depend on the tools they are using. The people with whom I want to connect are using LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com. Some of us also connect as friends through various sharing services (below) including Flickr.com.

LinkedIn describes itself as "a place to find and leverage professional opportunities, now and throughout your career." There are more than 14 million professional on LinkedIn who:

• Present their professional capabilities
• Find and connect with colleagues
• Use their extended networks to find and reach potential partners, clients, or employees
• Discover business opportunities
• Locate information

A basic account on LinkedIn is free. Premium accounts are available for those who really want to work their networks in LinkedIn. As an example of a LinkedIn profile, you can view mine at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jillhurstwahl . Notice that others on LinkedIn can leave recommendations on your profile that are visible to everyone.

If you are using LinkedIn and want to learn more about using it effectively, read LinkedIntelligence.com, a blog that focuses specifically on LinkedIn. The blog gives great advice for making LinkedIn work better for you. You might also read The LinkedIn Personal Trainer written by RPCN member Steven Tylock.

Facebook.com was originally a place for college students to connect. (Some of us may have memories of the printed face books given to us as college freshman). After a while, Facebook was opened up to high school students, and then to business people. Facebook has replaced MySpace for some, because of its better features and functionality. Facebook describes itself as "a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet."

Here is a good place to talk about privacy as well as learning more about your colleagues. It is important to consider what information you do not want to disclose about yourself online and then be consistent in applying your rule with every social networking tool. For example, I am very honest about who I am and what I do, but I do not disclose my home address.

Since people generally are willing to be more open about their lives in these social networking tools, you can often learn more about your colleagues through these tools rather than what you can learn from them face-to-face or via email. Someone can easily "buffalo" us in a quick face-to-face meeting, but may drop his/her guard online because the person sees these tools as both serious and fun (and we tend to disclose more when we're having fun).

To read a blog post I did on Facebook, go to http://tinyurl.com/ypwg2z . I'm on Facebook for a few minutes each day, updating my status (what I'm doing), checking on a colleagues, and perhaps sending a message to someone else. Facebook has become an important tool for staying in contact with several specific people. I've been able to use Facebook to teach my "friends" what I do in my consulting business, which I believe to be very valuable.

Friends? Many of these tools allow you to connect with "friends." Friends are those people that you want to be connected with, whether they are a friend, acquaintance or someone you don't really know. Who you consider a friend is a very personal decision. Some people will "friend" someone they have actually met face-to-face. My rule for who is a friend is different for each service I use and based on what I'm trying to achieve in a specific social networking tool.

** Continued in Part 2 **

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Sharing, Collaborating, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, MySpace

UM's library application for Facebook

I've received questions about how to promote an application that you build in Facebook. Here the University of Michigan is promoting an application they built for Facebook. A person must be a Facebook user in order to install the application. Interestingly, with this application, you do not need to be association with UM in order to use it!

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Technorati tag: Facebook

Facebook Business Solutions

Facebook is once again allowing businesses and organizations to have a presence in Facebook. Information on creating a Facebook page is here. Once this was announced, many organizations jumped right in! What about you?

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Technorati tags: Facebook, Connecting

Article: Facebook Has LinkedIn In Their Crosshairs

It is obvious to many Facebook users that we're using it for networking. Facebook has also recognized that and is making changes so that it is better for those of us who are networking professionally in its service. Facebook is making changes to its structure to allow for the concept of "networking." Soon you will be able to sort your friends into "groups" for yourself, so you can quickly separate social friends from business colleagues.

If you are using Facebook for networking, right now you can change your "Looking For" (under Profile, Relationships) to "Networking." That instantly will let people know that you are in Facebook as a professional, rather than someone who is interested in just socializing.

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Technorati tags: Social Networking Tools, Facebook, Connecting