Facebook Does have a Potential Business Use

Scott Carp on Publishing 2.0 posted a piece on Facebook’s lack of potential as a business application.  I agree with his point inasmuch as large corporations are not going to embrace the Facebook service as it stands.  The potential of the technology as it stands, and in fact many Web 2.0 technologies, is very high within business.  In fact, I would contend that this is a major reason why Microsoft is so interested.

One of the challenges for businesses as they grow is to maintain communication flows within the organisation.  It is no wonder that email has become one of the most important applications to most business’, it is the primary tool for communication between staff.  I would safely say that every company I work with would like to have better knowledge sharing, which is why Knowledge Management applications are a growth segment of the software market.

A Facebook style interface would work fantastically as a front end to corporate communications and knowledge management.

• You have your own profile which details your role and shows how you connect to others in the company.


• Your ‘wall’ acts as a notebook/blog of interesting snippets you come across that gets shared to people who have interest in your findings, like your immediate group


• Networks show your official connection, like to your team, region and projects you are working on


• Groups provide you a link to subject matter that you are interested in, like HR notices, product line information, social clubs.


• Friends build the representation of your network within the company and allow you to tap into the feeds of interesting people.


• The communication and knowledge management apps that link into this front end can use the API to be rendered into it, and use it as an integration tool (I’ll expand a little on this one later)

So the same way that Facebook maps out your social connections, a Facebook style front end could map out your intra-company connections, and could probably be extended into partner organisations.  It could provide an easy to use interface on disparate information systems, and this could help to increase the adoption of their use.  This type of system also provides a tangible map of the companies information network.  The business can also track what type of information is being sought in a better way and increase communication and interaction with line staff.

Even just looking at some of the applications that are available on Facebook at the moment.  I’ve stated before that I have yet to see any that I would classify as a ‘killer app’.  If I look at their potential in a business context though, the opinion changes.  If you are on Facebook, check out one of the many TV show fan applications (e.g. “Addicted to The Simpsons).  These apps have tabs for news, forum, quotes, trivia and a home-page.  This format would translate fantastically to a product training page.  News and forum stay the same, quotes changes to success stories, customer quotes, etc. and the trivia page could easily be reworked to a training page.

Other applications, like some of the Myers Briggs style personality tests could be used to map things like knowledge levels, opinions on products and strategy, or varied things of HR interest across the organisation.  The nature of the application allows this data to be easily collated across different networks and groups within the company.  Like any knowledge management or communication tool, the results are defendant on the level of adoption, however this is not a unique problem to this style of application.  The ease of use, and a few social and/or fun apps being allowed in could help a Facebook style app to have better adoption rates.

In short I can see a clear way that Facebook could be used in a business setting, which is one reason I am confident Microsoft won’t blow any money they spend on them.  I briefly thought about how I could build and sell this type of application myself, then realized that Microsoft already have one that is close – Sharepoint.  Sharepoint has most of the individual components, but in my opinion is missing the glue that makes it really usable.  Could this be why MS are so interested?  I would confidently predict a Facebook style front end to Sharepoint in the very near future.  If Steve Ballmer has his way, they will build it rather than buy.  Even if they don’t use the Facebook code though, a business relationship will be very helpful in negotiating those tricky IP licensing issues.