Actually, it's time to be more serious about social networking

I read Dan's post (below, hopefully, but here's a link just in case this post has wandered off on its own) and thought I'd take issue. Sorry, Dan. Actually, I'm not disagreeing with Dan - after all, he is right on the money. I'm not too sure I want the IWR readers and contributors group on Facebook to know exactly how many chocolate chip muffins I ate this afternoon - that's something for my friends to know,  although possibly not the colleagues over the desk from me who wondered where the last one went.

But I also think that the line between work and social life is blurred, especially in more recent times. I talk about personal things with my workmates and contacts, and knowing about each other as people always helps to smooth things along. However, the sorts of information people share on Facebook - as Dan has pointed out - are increasingly becoming more intimate.

Yet, my first reaction to reading the post below was: isn't Facebook for professionals actually called LinkedIn? I know it doesn't get much love, and I'm one of thousands who has rather neglected their profile on that site, but frankly, it's there for friends and business contacts that I want to stay in contact with professionally. Facebook is something you share with an inner business circle, because you want to find out how everyone did at Glastonbury, or see the latest pictures of an old workmates' kids.

Then again, there is a reason why LinkedIn isn't necessarily the Facebook Pro of which we seek.

Put simply, these things don't develop in parallel as much as we'd like to believe they do. LinkedIn overlapped with Orkut, which overlapped Friendster, which overlapped with Faceparty, which overlapped with MySpace, which overlapped with Facebook.

Facebook will be replaced in the affections of social
networkers some time soon by a newer, shinier toy, something with more
bells and whistles, perhaps, or something a little more elegant. Or
possibly something that makes the distinction between friends you share
everything with, and business acquaintances you'd like to share certain
things with. I don't know. LinkedIn survived as a popular cause for a few years, and it'll probably stumble on for a few more, but I'm betting there will be a thinning out of other, weaker, members of the social networking circle some time soon.

I also know one other thing - it's not linear. Orkut still has a huge
following in Brazil, for example. LinkedIn is still visited. Will the
last person in at Plaxo.com please turn out the lights? Which brings us
to another point I've only just stumbled across. I can't remember the
last time I visited Plaxo, and yet it has a couple of hundred business
contacts of mine on file. I need to wipe them right away.

[Edit: Monday, 30th August: I've just had a call from the lovely people that represent Plaxo about this post, saying that, actually, Plaxo hasn't been sitting around twiddling its thumbs. They didn't threaten to break my legs or anything, you understand, but they did point out that Plaxo is now on version 3.0, and has added many more bells and whistles since I last logged in. I'll be talking to them next week - more then, hopefully. In the mean time, I'm going to try and work out the last time I had any interaction with someone as a result of Plaxo.]