Is Facebook Starting to Grow Up?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on October 13th, 2007 7:20 PM

In my last post I discussed how LinkedIn’s closed version of their API may end up providing them a competitive advantage over Facebook. That’s not the only advantage they have. Currently there is no way to show that you have a professional connection with someone. It looks like that is about to change as Mike Arrington points out.

A small change to the users.getInfo API call shows that “Networking” is one of the options for the meeting_for field. If you currently try to change the “Looking For” field in your profile, there is no option for “Networking” currently but that may be changing soon. There is no guarantee that this change will be happening soon though.

As I pointed out back in September, Facebook launched a data storage service but little details have been provided since then. Then a week ago I mentioned the new marketplace integration with the Facebook API. Yet again, there have been few details provided.

Now, “Networking” may be added to the “Looking For” field on users’ profiles. The combination of the new feature with the friend grouping feature may very well spell death for LinkedIn. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one that thinks so. Do you think Facebook is going to launch the new features that they have been teasing us with for the past few months or is Facebook just a tease?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 7:20 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Is Facebook Starting to Grow Up?”

Facebook Has LinkedIn In Their Crosshairs Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 5:30 am
[…] be shown to them (sans the dating status and pictures of you getting drunk). Or as Nick O’Neil puts it, Facebook may be growing […]
Facebook Has LinkedIn In Their Crosshairs | K E K U [alpha] Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 9:29 am
[…] can be shown to them (sans the dating status and pictures of you getting drunk). Or as Nick O’Neil puts it, Facebook may be growing […]
Does Facebook Have the Right Priorities? - The Unofficial Facebook Blog Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
[…] we have been writing about as a result of hidden signals that Facebook has been dropping including yesterday’s addition of the “Networking” option to the meeting_for field. I understand that Facebook may […]
Facebook Just Ain’t For Business, Get Over It (Business Needs Social Networking in Context)| Zoli’s Blog Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
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