Facebook will not cut it as your intranet

2007 will certainly go down (in part) as the Year of Facebook. FB rose sharply as a web phenomenon earlier in the year and what is striking is how quickly the glamour starts to subside. As we end the year three criticisms of FB are looking to have done some serious damage to the social software tool:

• Identity theft on the web is a big problem and open-style sites are loved by those who want your data - FB is a data criminals playground
• Advertising revenue is a big challenge for FB. How to allow advertisers to promote their services and products without damaging the integrity of FB. The model announced by FB a few months back was a disaster.....not a good start
• One sinister way that FB is being abused on a business level can be seen in how businesses use FB to generate marketing and sales by pretending to engage in "conversations" with others on FB. They appear to want to be seen to) promote community but instead re doing "old fashioned marketing"

To just add another intranet criticism to FB can we now agree that FB will not cut it as an intranet. The intranet blogosphere got very animated a few month ago when Serena Software decided to use FB as its intranet. Does that means HP can ditch its intranet and use FB instead?

• Serena has 900 techy staff in Silicon Valley - and probably saw a good PR story - they are not HP
• FB allows connection and communication in a user friendly environment. That is good but try booking a meeting room, handling your expenses, manging new product development, finding key marketing documents etc - and FB is not there. Intranets are broad sets of online services.
• FB is outside your firewall and lacks the security needed for intranets. Do you want to load swathes of corporate data onto FB. See how the stock market reacts to that action?

Some good news from FB:

What FB has done is accelerate the pace for organizations to develop connection and communication tools internally that have similar facilities and style to FB. Collaborative tools are getting better and we have a new phrase being routinely expressed by staff...instead of "Why can't our search be like Google?" we now have "Why can't our intranet be like FB?"

Just as Google responded by developing eventually an enterprise suite, maybe FB is now working on its own enterprise offering. There would be a good market now for that but will there still be in a year's time?

Comments

[Richard Dennison]

Paul - I agree with much of what you have said ... however, one thing I would ask is: 'What is your definition of intranet?'

I don't see why Facebook shouldn't be 'part' of your intranet if you believe that the term 'intranet' means more than just web pages hosted inside your firewall. If 'intranet' means the tools and systems your employees use to do their job and collaborate with partners, suppliers and customers, then Facebook might be an important component in the mix.

Might post some more thoughts on this topic on my blog - thanks for getting the juices flowing - HAPPY XMAS!!!

Richard

[Paul Miller]

What a great point Richard. The idea that the "intranet landscape" might extend beyond the firewall into web services etc is intriguing. It opens up the idea that FB can be "absorbed" into the online fabric of your work which I like. Glad your juices are flowing!

[Nic Price]

If we think of the intranet as "my web at work" (pun intended) there's no reason Facebook can't be a part of that web.

[Finnur Magnusson]

I agree that it is not a great idea to build your intranet on Facebook but as you say, it has set the bar for online communities and interaction.
In my work (VYRE.com) I have had a number of "Make my intranet work like Facebook" conversations in the last 3 months. I think that is a good thing :p

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