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Facebook has had groups & networks for quite awhile. However, yesterday they [re-]launched something called Network Pages to aggregate related people, groups, events, and other data associated with a regional, college, or work-related network. They also did a slight facelift on the site design, made the inbox UI a bit easier to understand, and got rid of That Guy.
Q: Why is this important?
Well, i'm guessing FB is trying to drive usage among non-college demographics, and one way to do that is to start emphasizing non-college network pages based on regional & workplace networks for old fogies like me to join & checkout. Also, as people graduate and start getting jobs in the real world, regional & workplace networks will gradually become more relevant than college networks. see my previous post on facebook: "big, sticky, & growing..." for stats & other Facebook growth by segment.
side note: this is something i've been suggesting LinkedIn do long ago -- that is, pre-instantiate LinkedIn Groups for every combination of college & workplace affiliations they can think of. new LinkedIn members could then join these networks right away, add links to people they know, and likely become significantly more active users. Currently the LinkedIn Groups experience is rather painful... i'm a huge fan of LinkedIn, so i'm hoping perhaps some tough blog love will get them to do a similar overhaul soon. please reid?
other related coverage:
- facebook blog announcement on network pages & changes
- mashable coverage on facebook redesign
- venturebeat coverage on facebook redesign
- earlier techcrunch coverage on redesign in "facebook sneak preview"
- my earlier post on facebook: "big, sticky, & growing..."
More Startups. More Jobs.
I can't wait until they fix groups. That would make my day. Maybe even my week :)
Posted by: wen | Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 05:35 PM