Facebook - the ultimate distraction?

I read an article not long ago regarding the evil vice that is Facebook and the problems associated with it in the work place. It is more than common these days to have sanctions placed on workplace computers and more specifically on social networks and slightly less savoury sites. But are they really necessary, and do people actually waste their time on it all day every day as we have been led to believe.

The short answer is... well, maybe. The fact of the matter is that some people do, and they seem to ruin the fun for everyone else. According to the recently published Ipsos Mori's The Engage Report, only 5% of people access Facebook from their place of work, the majority using their home broadband. On average Facebook users spend around an hour and ten minutes per day on the site, but have been forced to spend this time at home while their bosses block access to the site. What they fail to realise is that many people, including myself, use Facebook for work, to contact people who they believe may wish to do business or work with. In fact, the report reveals that many people who use Facebook use it to replace conventional email processes. Therefore using Facebook is not necessarily the biggest problem businesses face, and I doubt whether they will be saving any considerable time by placing sanctions on it in the work place. Still, employers like to have these small power struggles with employees, as has been the way from the beginning of time!

The report in fact revealed some very interesting figures. It appears that loyalty has become an issue with social networking sites, with only 29% of people who signed up to it using it on a continuing basis. Despite this, social networks remain a powerful tool for advertisers and users alike, though for quite different reasons. This would no doubt explain the recently announced acquisition of 5% equity stake in Facebook by Microsoft. An interesting move especially when Google, who lost out on the deal, shortly after announced their partnerships with several other social networks including MySpace. The future of social networking is a hazy one and I think social network providers need to realise that they get carried away with all the features they provide. Having spoken to several friends who used to use Facebook, it seems that the additions of applications and endless pointless group invites have caused them to move away and ignore the clutter in their inbox from various notifications.

The future, which I think Google might be heading towards, is a global social network that ties into Facebook, MySpace and the various other most popular sites, providing one, easy to use (and very much uncluttered) system that draws data from the others and does not try anything too fancy. It will be interesting to observe the developments.