Trying To Justify That $2 Billion Pricetag, Facebook Expands Beyond Students

from the now-more-like-myspace dept

Here's one you couldn't see coming. Social-networking site Facebook is expanding beyond high school and college users. However, instead of just opening it up to anyone, which might rob it of its uniqueness, they're opening it up to employees at select corporations. So now, instead of it just being a tool to allow a student to hook up with that person in their Gender in the Fin De Siecle class, someone in sales at Intuit can flirt with their cute colleague in HR. It's no surprise that they want to expand their userbase. The company is open that they want to sell out for $2 billion, while at the same time there's evidence that their traffic is flagging. They may have waited too long, however, to go after this market. Lots of me-too starupts want to be the MySpace of the enterprise.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Steve, 27 Apr 2006 @ 11:14am

    Tech folks

    Given that the attention span of the average techie these days is about one wee...ohhh...loook....a router...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Jezsik, 27 Apr 2006 @ 11:36am

      Re: Tech folks

      Thanks for the laugh ... I needed that!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Cowards -R- Us, 27 Apr 2006 @ 11:37am

      Re: Tech folks

      wow.. um, so distracted are you that you cannot even make a point. If you are that distracted, how could you even find the submit button?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    silentrite, 27 Apr 2006 @ 11:53am

    hm...

    Not a bad idea, since a lot of the people at my office are on MySpace. At least facebook is a little more professional.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      some dude, 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:06pm

      Re: hm...

      more professional? i didn't realize attention whoring was a professional business

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2006 @ 6:41pm

        Re: Re: hm...

        whoring is one of the world's oldest professional businesses

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    CJ, 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:05pm

    wow.. um, so distracted are you that you cannot even make a point. If you are that distracted, how could you even find the submit button?


    looks like you need your joke-o-meter recalibrated.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Hairball, 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:08pm

    bad idea

    IMO this is not a good move for facebook. Facebook is known for being the college and soon-to-be college student's social networking site. I don't see how expanding to 'select corporations' will help their cause. If i'm going to flirt with a colleague, i'll walk to her cubicle (office if she's really hot) and ask her to dinner or something. I can only imagine the sort of trouble someone will get in with their company by posting something stupid. Like that ever happens, right?

    And another thing... who decides who these select corporations are?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    chris (profile), 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:17pm

    re: hm..

    "i didn't realize attention whoring was a professional business"

    try working with developers sometime. not only is it a business, appearantly it pays well too.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sean, 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:18pm

    Select companies

    The 'Select Companies' is probably like

    What company do you work for? (Insert your company here)

    Yeah that is one of them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Another baseless comment, 27 Apr 2006 @ 2:24pm

      Re: Select companies

      If you had used Facebook then you would know that you must have a valid email address at the institution that you are supposed to be invloved with. I had to use my student id to regisiter (not my social)...so that leads me to believe that they have some type of agreement with the universities...and I'm sure that businesses would want an even larger level of assurance that someone is infact an employee.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jeff, 27 Apr 2006 @ 12:45pm

    Re: Select Companies

    Hum, so I can flirt online with my two collegues?.... Don't think it is for my company.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    tk., 27 Apr 2006 @ 1:07pm

    uhh

    Sweet, another potential URL to add to the company's block list.

    I'll buy facebook for a $2B buy in. Then I'd dismantle every little piece of it, because it's becoming so stupid that no one needs to be exposed to it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dan, 27 Apr 2006 @ 10:00pm

    how long till thefacebook gets blamed for someone getting fired a la myspace? i give it 6 months. bets anyone?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Doug Sherrets, 28 Apr 2006 @ 10:15am

    My analysis of facebook adding companies from Augu

    Hi,

    I wrote about this on August 31, 2005. Check out the article: http://www.minorityrapport.com/2005/08/facebook_for_al.html

    I wrote a new post yesterday: http://www.minorityrapport.com/2006/04/fun_it_actually.html

    It will be interesting to see the adoption curve at companies.

    Doug

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Judah Wilson, CEO Top20Network.com, 30 Apr 2006 @ 10:54am

      Doug, you were right, and here is why

      One word: Branding. The reason it will not work in the corporate world is becuase the branding for the site was solidified when they chose to go for high school students rather than businesses. The first wave of seniors that graduated after Facebook became popular (May of last year) was the market Facebook had to get. Facebook was hot, and a large portion of their users were heading to the corporate world. Facebook missed it, and as soon as privacy issues surfaced, the students that sparked the original movement (students at top 20 schools) stopped using the site. I predict that from here on student usage will steadily decline.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    vrdjipi@mail.ru, 3 Aug 2006 @ 4:31am

    nd more. From website .

    ringtones free

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Aug 2006 @ 4:31am

    s

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.