Response to a LinkedIn Dropout

More than one person forwarded me Jeff Pulver's blog post about quitting LinkedIn in favor of Facebook. I had already read the post in my regular blog feeds, but figured if so many people were sending it to me, they must thought it meant something.

So I have a confession of my own to make: I don't use Facebook.

Oh sure, if you send me an invite and I know who you are, I'll probably go ahead and add you, but if I log in once a week, it's extremely unusual. The only reason I have an account is to research things for articles I write here at Profy, and aside from that, I really have no use for it.

I realize that I sound like a technophobe, but honestly, I'm usually an early adopter. I just don't have a need for Facebook in my life. There are already countless ways I can interact with the many services companies are already starting to provide on the platform. I find people searching kludgy and confusing (does anyone else get the same several results from the bottom of one page appended to the next, giving you only three meaningful results per page when searching for a person?). I find the groups there mostly full of current college students, and few professional organizations or groups I could see myself using. Above all, because my alma maters don't offer alumni email accounts, I am unable to join my very own college community, leaving out a huge portion of networking I can do easily on Facebook. I don't necessarily remember everyone by name to search for them individually. Add in the concern from one of the commenters that Facebook is considered a social network, and as such, a time waster, that it's blocked by many corporate environments, leaving the ability to query a professional group out of reach for many users, and it just doesn't make sense.

LinkedIn isn't a be-all and end-all for professional social networking. I think there are many features they can (and should) add to make the service a one-stop shop for those seeking professional networking without all the add-ons many of us have no time to use. But if I'm looking for a professional to provide a service, get an answer to a business question, or want to forward someone's resume I think might be a good fit for a company, LinkedIn is the first place I'd turn. Facebook doesn't even make the list.