BusinessWeek had the effrontery to run yet another Facebook story (YAFS) with the sorry headline, “Fogeys Flock to Facebook.” I may be over 40, but damn, I am in no way prepared to handle the unbearable weight of that description.
So screw BusinessWeek. I could point out, as the article does, how Facebook signs up 150,000 new users a day or how the 35-and-up crowd now accounts for more than 41% of all Facebook visitors, but instead I’ll turn to a more telling comment on the story made by David Mullings, a 26-year-old entrepreneur.
I run my own company and use LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace – but each of them serve a slightly different purpose. If I had to choose one though, it would be Facebook. Where else can I have Guy Kawasaki, author of “The Art of the Start” as a friend and actually get a reply from him? So far Facebook has succeeded for me where LinkedIn has failed – connecting me with VCs and Angel Investors. On top of that, Facebook has allowed me to connect with interesting individuals from all over the World because of the groups – especially the Web 2.0 group. All these sites are tools and how you use a tool is less important than what the tool can do in the first place. LinkedIn is limited for what I want to do. Within 1 week of joining Facebook, I secured an invitation to Boston College to present at their Entrepreneurship Club in September – top that LinkedIn or MySpace.