Facebook applications have been spread virally, and the most popular apps seem to hold the least importance when it comes to productivity. You can throw beer at your friends or play the amazingly ridiculous Werewolf game, however none of the top applications enable professional services. Sheryl Sandberg, the ex Googler who is now the Facebook COO, has said that they will be actively promoting the development of applications that enable worthwhile engagement. However this is taking a certain assumption for granted, which is, will anyone use professional service applications? I will admit that the Facebook platform is an incredible concept, however I’m not convinced that it is a medium for high level business purposes. I have the LinkedIn application added to my profile, however the only thing it really does is help add my LinkedIn connections to Facebook. I also utilize the Twitter application, and I do love that every time I send out a message it automatically updates my Facebook profile, however it still doesn’t help me conduct business.

For an application to be considered a true business service it has to be able to help others “conduct business”.  And in my opinion, the platform is simply not engineered for that type of performance. There is no plausible reason for me to perform a task on a Facebook application unless it is directly related to my Facebook activity.  Why would I utilize a Facebook application when I could simply open a new browser window and log into Salesforce or Zoho?

Essentially I consider Sandberg and Zuckeberg to have missed the mark on their strategic focus. The way to make the Facebook platform necessary for business is to connect employees inside organizations beyond the social sphere.  This means competiting with Google apps, where employees have a secured network where they can share files, calender items, instant messaging, etc. And all of these would have to be tied to enterprise systems and mobile tools. Facebook has a head start since a large number of corporations do have private networks on the social network, and if they began to integrate software that would allow for corporate productivity they would be able to finally become a true business solution.

We’ll see what Mark and Sheryl have planned for us.