What the hell is Goofy anyway?
Posted by klondike on 27 Feb 2009 at 04:24 am | Tagged as: Business
The title of this post is a line from the movie “Stand by me” certainly one of my favourite. In this scene Gordy, Chris, Teddy and Vern are chatting about stuff and life in general when Vern comes out with “What the hell is Goofy anyaway”. Is he a dog or a person or what?
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This sets the scene for my Facebook dilema. “What the hell is facebook anyway”. Is it a personal social networking site is it for business or is it something in between. Linkedin has a very clear identity and it is business. Facebook seems to have multiple personalities. Early on when everyone on the site was under 25 it had a very clear and distinct idea that it was for friends to connect. These days it seems to be trying to be everything to everybody and in that attempt pleasing no one.
Facebook continues to be one of the top 3 internet destinations in the world, however, if it continues to suffer from this Goofy identity crisis not knowing who they are as a social network then the decline is only just starting.
Cheers,
Ian Graham
facebook markets itself as a social network for real people with real friends. So with that in mind I guess our friends would include our family, friends and colleagues.
I am with you on this Ian. While not a active Facebook user, I have “followed” Facebook since the very early days, when its positioning, utility and community was clear. Perhaps because its original “community” has finished school and entered the workforce, Facebook is trying to gain footing there as well. Meanwhile non-career use of Facebook now cuts across all demographics. What is interesting to me now is how Facebook and other services are changing the nature, methods and utility of messaging.
It is also interesting how much LinkedIn is changing. While relatively simple and stagnant for several years, it is now aggressively adding functionality.
BTW, there are rumors that LinkedIn and Facebook have explored merging. LinkedIn has a well-defined revenue model, is very profitable, has ~$100M in cash and a $1B+ valuation.
Steve