Facebook Sucks
According to Robert Scoble Facebook sucks because it, “falls apart at 5,000 contacts.”
This isn’t an assassination of Robert, but the way he treats Facebook is interesting, mostly the fact that he refers to his connections as contacts, whereas Facebook refers to them as Friends. No one has 5000 friends so the limit makes sense; although, few people have 5000 worthwhile contacts either; fans, followers, hangers on, sure but not useful contacts.
Robert says that It’s a myth, that:
- “business networking needs to be cold and dispassionate;”
- “business networking never includes personal stuff like religion, sports, politics, or your favorite TV show or book;”
- “business requires getting rid of the college kids and their frat parties;”
These points are all fair enough, but none of them mean that a system designed for personal networking will work for business networking. I do have a number of friends that are also business contacts, and vice versa, but my Facebook connections stay based in the friend world, whereas others, Linkedin for example, stay based on business; even when they are the same people.
So is he wrong to use Facebook in a way it clearly wasn’t designed? I don’t think so, but I also doubt that Facebook would really do the trick for business networking anyway. I would guess that a good 90% of those contacts would be diluting the benefit, making Facebook the Homeopathy of the networking world; something I am sure no one ever intended.
I don’t see why anyone would want to use Facebook for business networking, and even if they did I don’t think anyone who was using it effectively would ever have a problem with the 5000 limit. Perhaps I’m wrong but I don’t see the benefit of having thousands of random people telling what they are doing right now which, if we are honest, is what Robert has.
All of which is not to say that Robert isn’t on to something. Perhaps the future of networking is some kind of central hub that figures out whether people have common goals and aspirations, as well as the means to help each other out, and puts them in contact with each other; business dating by any other name. Then again perhaps not.
Time will tell, I’m sure.
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