Linking business with pleasure
Jinfo Blog

26th January 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

Item

Penny Crossland’s comment on the latest LinkedIn alliance, with Lotus, continues the story of the social networking site’s remorseless advance into mainstream business information territory http://www.vivavip.com/go/e15692. Other LinkedIn initiatives highlighted previously on LiveWire include Pamela Clark on its integration with OneSource http://www.vivavip.com/go/e7715 and Udo Hohlfeld on the launch of its own search platform http://www.vivavip.com/go/e13963. Now CMS Watch, an analyst that provides independent advice to buyers on content technology, offers further explanation why LinkedIn is leaving all other social networking sites behind, in business at any rate. According to its Enterprise Social Software & Collaboration Report 2009 http://digbig.com/4ydyq (cost upwards of $875) LinkedIn surpasses Facebook in information filtering and discussion, has chosen to control the release of ‘approved’ applications (unlike the Facebook free-for-all), and is perceived as more professional, especially among those who may be uncomfortable mixing personal and professional personas in one place. Indeed, the top social networking sites could eventually challenge the dominance of Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL in their role as the gateways to the web. In a recent article in Business Week http://digbig.com/4ydyr Jeffrey F Rayport of Marketspace queries the sustainability of Google’s mission to ‘organize the world's information’. ‘Organizing information is how earlier generations of web companies have traditionally created value for users,’ he says. But the new game is radically different; ‘Facebook, in particular, has set out to organize not the world's content, but the world's people.’ Back in the business forum – even though it’s on a roll, LinkedIn has plenty of work to do yet. The CMS report assesses 26 sites in total so there’s lots of potential competition, and CMS adds that neither LinkedIn nor Facebook provides the blog, wiki and project tracking services that support broader enterprise collaboration. And there’s another issue for social networking sites in business that Penny Crossland points out still needs to be addressed: confidentiality. ‘Will businesses be happy to let employees discuss work matters with outside contacts?’ she asks. Good question. Writing in the journal Product Liability Law & Strategy last November http://digbig.com/4ydys Ronald J Levine and Susan L Swatski-Lebson pose the questions: Does a social networking site user have a right to privacy, or does an adversary in litigation have the right to obtain information from that site, and how admissible in court is the information so obtained? Their cautious conclusion is that, on balance, it doesn’t look good for the social network user. True, they are talking in a personal context, about US law, and specifically about product liability – but it doesn’t take much of a leap of the imagination to apply the same scenario to off-the-record conversations between business partners of the kind who are currently embracing LinkedIn with such enthusiasm.

« Blog