Change of face at Facebook

Facebook, the site that Rolling Stone magazine applauds for making college “cruising for tale easier than ever”, is suiting up. While its extension into the corporate market may be designed to support its wish for a $2 billion buyer, it may lead to a loss of “cred” with its student faces:

“What makes the site -- with its candid photos, booty shots and cheeky profiles -- unique from networks like Friendster and MySpace is that it's exclusively for academia. Which is precisely how students like it, thanks. And with a whopping 7 million members from more than 2,100 universities and 22,000 high schools, Facebook is now the seventh-most-trafficked site on the Net…While other online communities are rife with poseurs, Facebook members use their ".edu" e-mail addresses; as a result, there's inherent social pressure to be real,” says Rolling Stone.

A screenshot of the Facebook account creation screen, with a corporate option, is posted at TechCrunch:

“Facebook…is now allowing new users from corporate networks to join their social network (based on email address) in addition to high school and college students. Niall Kennedy was able to register using a microsoft employee email address. I was not able to register using my TechCrunch email - only certain companies are currently supported,” says Michael Arrington.

While Facebook is starting to append work networks to school networks, the (now rival) Linked-In, has been recruiting alumni groups to augment its “professional networking tools for hiring managers, job seekers and professional service providers.” While Linked-In and Facebook are busily building out competing social and professional networks, the two Internet start-ups share an investor network: Greylock Partners and private investor Peter Thiel.

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