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Facebook expands to corporate social networking; again with staggered rollout strategy
April 26th, 2006
Earlier today Facebook publicly opened registration beyond the world of students for the first time (!) to people with select corporate email accounts.
But, like Facebook’s limited initial availability–first only to Harvard students, then to select schools like Stanford and its east-coast counter-parts (I’m biased :)), and gradually to almost every school around the country–Facebook is only allowing corporate registration to people with email addresses at 10 select companies and 1 non-profit organization:
Facebook had great success with its staggered rollout strategy in the college market. I think they are hoping to create the same viral effect in the professional setting.
Note the way that Facebook has chosen to seed the corporate market: instead of specifically focusing on one sector or industry, they’ve chosen leading companies in several industries that typically hire top-caliber grads (consulting, software development, hardware development, consumer products).
The company apparently hopes the Facebook meme will trickle-down to other companies in these sectors by traversing the professional networks of hip workers and, eventually, that it will spread to other sectors through alumni and non-professional networks.
How will this affect the millions of students already on the service? I suspect that Facebook will work hard to make sure that the corporate crowd stays in one corner and the college crowd in another as much as they can–no 19 year old likes getting “poked” by someone in their 40’s–just as they have done with the recent expansion into high schools. As long as Facebook stays safe for students, expanding into the corporate world should not adversely affect their dominance in the college and high school markets.
How popular will Facebook be with corporate users? While the rollout will likely create buzz in some circles, I don’t think you’ll see the same phenomenal viral exponent or use patterns over time. Professionals just don’t talk to dozens of classmates a day or live in dorms with hundreds of peers, and they certainly don’t have 51 minutes a day to spend looking at cute members of the opposite sex and writing on each others’ walls… I’m lucky if I see my friends at Apple once a month.
Additional coverage: Niall Kennedy, TechCrunch, Susan Mernit, Techdirt, Valleywag, Don Dodge/Microsoft, Fred Stutzman, Bernard Moon, MediaPost, ZDNet, CNet, Chronicle of Higher Ed
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April 27th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Someone needs to find who had this idea, and beat them. I’m a Facebook fan. I don’t like this. The whole point to Facebook is (was?) exclusivity. If you take that out, it’s just a boring MySpace. It had a “hip” appearance with the college crowd. I understand that they need more customers, if they want the pricetag they’ve been pining for, but don’t take it out on the college kids.
April 27th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Fun, it actually happened! Corporate facebook comes to fruition eight months after my post…
Special thanks to Mike Arrington’s TechCrunch (and thank you Mike for the link love, I am a huge fan of TechCrunch!) for alerting me that Facebook is expanding beyond high school and college facebooks. On August 31, 2005, I argued…
April 27th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
[...] Update: The Facebook blog lists the ten companies that are Facebook-enabled:Accenture, Amazon, Apple,EA,Gap,Intel,Intuit,Microsoft, Pepsi,PWC andTeach for America. [...]
April 27th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Facebook says “yes” to Apple, Microsoft, Accenture, Gap……
So Facebook has finally added a corporate facebook. Early results show about 10 people registered at Microsoft for the query s, which finds people with first or last names starting with s. TechCrunch comments seem skewed towards concern it will disrup…
April 27th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Corporate alumni networking is one of the most underutilized recruiting tools around. It will be interesting to see how the facebook community will morph as companies are added. My company, YorZ, already offers corporate alumni groups for scores of companies as well as a way to connect and recruit within each. You can check it out at: http://groups.yorz.com/groupsDirectory.htm
April 27th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
[...] Facebook is expanding to include corporate networking now. However, only few companies are allowed in right now. [...]
April 27th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Facebook following its college users into the work world…
Facebook is moving into the corporate world with a limited beta of 10 companies. Techcrunch estimates……
April 27th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
[...] Following onmy post on how Social Networking might be the next thing for inside corporations now Facebook has joined the game… and named a number (10) of customer who will work in their Beta of a corporate social networking system. Its an impressive list, including: Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EA, Gap, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Pepsi, PWC and Teach for America. [...]
April 27th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
I don’t think work and college networks will be linked together like the high school and college networks. That would just be silly.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Well two members of the senior team at Facebook were involved in http://www.Linkedin.com ( the largest corporate network)Matt Cohler and http://www.spoke.com, (the richest datasource and network for salespeople) Chris Kelly so they did not get into this without thinking.
It will be interesting to watch how this develops.
April 28th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
open up to the feds and Lockheed
April 28th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
GOINGON’S SPACE IS GETTING WARMER… FACEBOOK, WEB 2.0 MEETS ENTERPRISE, BLAH BLAH…
Today there is news that Facebook is entering the corporate market. I’m not sure how an online directory for companies will work out, but it’s interesting that these consumer plays are looking into the corporate sector after they’ve exhausted their …
April 28th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
The feds, yeah super idea. I want to see GW on facebook.
April 29th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
My name is Judah Wilson and I am the CEO of Top20Network.com. I was going to start a site similar to Facebook 2 months before Zuckerberg, but I was beat to the market. Instead, I have launched what will be the alternative to Facebook. Our directory connects individuals and businesses from the top 20 schools in the country. What the Facebook doesn’t understand, is that they have undercut their market. As soon as privacy issues became a factor, and students started limiting who could view their profiles, the site began to collapse. Who is going to stop using Facebook first? Answer: The students who have more to lose (top 20 students). Our site is not elitist, it simply recognizes which users will (have?) left Facebook already. We will accomplish what should have begun along time ago: joining together the alumni networks of the top 20 schools in the country. Facebook has overstepped their boundary, and is losing their initial market. Students and alumni have begun registering for our site, and we anticipate higher numbers in the weeks to come. Our apologies to Facebook, but stick to what you know best Mark.
April 30th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
[...] Just recently Inside Facebook wrote about plans to roll out Facebook to the business world adding a new network to their already popular College and High School networks. I personally believe this was a great business move and would like to play around with the idea of implementing it in my company again. For more information, check out the Inside Facebook blog entry. [...]
May 1st, 2006 at 12:55 am
Judah - check out thesquare.com
May 1st, 2006 at 2:54 am
[...] Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported that Facebook goes beyond college and high school and opens its network to a select number of corporations. According to Inside Facebook, employees from Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EA, Gap, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Pepsi, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and Teach for America can start opening accounts. [...]
May 1st, 2006 at 9:01 am
SelectMinds: Leader in Corporate Social Networking…
SelectMinds: Leader in Corporate Social Networking
I start this post with a full disclaimer: I am a Software Engineer at SelectMinds, and while I speak favorably of them, my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. No…
May 3rd, 2006 at 4:34 am
[...] About « Facebook expands to corporate social networking; again with staggered rollout strategy [...]
May 4th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Corporate Social Networking…
In response to the recent announcement by Facebook that it is entering the enterprise world, Joseph O’Connell has a good post arguing that corporate social networking has in fact been around for a while, enabled by solution providers like SelectMinds….
May 18th, 2006 at 4:42 am
[...] Facebook continues to explode on the work networking scene. After launching company directories 3 weeks ago, the number of new company Facebooks created this week has doubled to 2,000, bringing the total number close to 4,000. Those numbers are parabolic, which is a good sign for the health of any viral feature. [...]
July 10th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Looks like everyone wants to make some dough while the sun is still shining on Web 2.0. The social networking market is saturated and unless there is a valid context, it is not going to work. I think!
November 7th, 2007 at 5:13 am
—”Looks like everyone wants to make some dough while the sun is still shining on Web 2.0. The social networking market is saturated and unless there is a valid context, it is not going to work. I think!”…. Compare this opinion with today’s Facebook…The same social networking site chasing by big web players to have share in it.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
[...] is moving into the corporate world with a limited beta of 10 companies. Techcrunch estimates Facebook revenue at $1M per week, or about $50M. MySpace is believed to [...]
February 4th, 2008 at 1:47 am
It agree with the author! Thanks it for the information!
April 9th, 2008 at 6:24 am
why would facebook open to these sucky corporates? sell outs - no exclusivety now!!
April 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
You can still be as exclusive as you want - you can even setup your our network if you like; everyone from small companies to giant ones
(Hint: You can see all the facebook networks using Google, just search for site:www.facebook.com/networks/ - you can also view them on facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/networks/networks.php )
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
[...] photo sharing, mobile - and they’ve expanded their network extensively to include things like businesses and high schools. Facebook’s strategic moves, coupled with an avalanche of press coverage [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[...] Techcrunch and Inside Facebook, it looks like Facebook is rolling out its services to corporate markets. Microsoft, Apple, [...]