Are friends on Facebook as valuable as a connection on Linkedin

Open Networkers I've been focused on building my Linkedin network for about 1 year now and have about 14,300 connections. I just started my Facebook open networking and after 2 weeks have 500 friends. I know why I'm building my network, I have a specific plan, it pays huge dividends but I was wondering if there was an inherent value per connection that someone could put on a social network connection and if that inherent value would be equal across different social networks?

For example let's say that a Linkedin connection is worth $1.00, would a Facebook connection be worth $2.00 and a MySpace Connection worth $3.00 because of the relative size of the network? Is the value of the connection in any way related to the value of the network?

Is the value of the connection more if the network has more members?

What about if the network was very specialized like only administrative assistants or lion tamers?

What are the main factors that add value to any one specific connection?

Does the value of a connection fluctuate with time?

Is there a relavancy factor?

What about the activity level of the connection? This could be taken either as good or bad. Either they spend too much time or not enough time.

What if it's just a name and title and email and no profile, no picture, now blub, no blog posts no nothing?

If you had to put a dollar amount on the value of a connection on Linkedin what would it be?

Now use that same criteria for Facebook?

Now how about for connections on MySpace?

The list goes on and on Click here for a full list of Social Networks

Also at what point does all this become unmanagable?
Having 14,000 connections on LI is a bit time consuming but it's not that too bad 1 hour a week. Facebook with 500 connections is draining much more of my time because of all the requests, invitation for this cause and that cause, and group promotion, wall to wall posts etc etc etc and ugh the list goes on it never stops...If I had 14,000 friends on Linkedin I'm not sure it would be worth it...

I'm thinking about creating a personal profile where only accept invites from friends and another business profile where I'll accept anything and be open...

Jeff Weidner
jeffweidnerlinkedin@gmail.com
HTC Research Corp
925 313 9005 X 200

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Weidner on January 9, 2009 at 12:33pm

UGH I just erased these thing and hour ago
RequestsIgnore All1 friend suggestion1 friend request3 event invitations15 group invitations7 cause invitations7 (lil) green patch requests1 poker invitation1 sexgames invitation2 yoville crew requests2 birthday requests1 kidnap! request1 knighthood invitation1 movie quiz request1 happy new year... invitation1 new years drink request

Might have to just start hitting ignore all...but what will I be missing out on....oh no

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on January 9, 2009 at 12:40pm

Good questions all.

Reminds me of days of yore when I would watch high tech companies being gobbled up -I often thought they were pricing them so many thousands (or tens and hundreds of thousands) per emoloyee -know what I mean?

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Weidner on January 9, 2009 at 12:51pm

Ahh that's hilarious. Maureen

I can just see an auditor coming into the office to evaluate your worth as an employee.

I'm sorry you are wearing an ugly suit, you are getting a deduction?

You have too many tardy notices... deduction.

Bad hair day...deduction.

Foul breath and BO and a lousy peer review...triple deduction word score.

You mis-appropriated 10's of millions of dollars to an off shore account in the Caymans using various trusts, insurance policy umbrellas and hedge fund scams and saved the company millions in taxes by doing so though illegal... You are getting a bonus.

Jeff Weidner

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on January 9, 2009 at 12:56pm

Hilarious? I'd have a long way to go to beat this!
You mis-appropriated 10's of millions of dollars to an off shore account in the Caymans using various trusts, insurance policy umbrellas and hedge fund scams and saved the company millions in taxes by doing so though illegal... You are getting a bonus.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on January 9, 2009 at 4:10pm

Facebook seems much more 'social' to me than LinkedIn. I think its comparing apples to oranges though, not sure if there is a way to quantify them down to value per connection. It's too subjective. Depends what you do with all the connections. I tend to keep Facebook more quality connections, people I actually know in some way. LinkedIn the opposite, it's more about extending my reach so that I get better search results. I spend next to no time on Facebook, if I had a big network there I think I'd go nuts with all the sending of fake free drinks, etc. Yet, I've had new clients and candidates reach out to me from Facebook, actually for me that's the difference. I have people reaching out to me on Facebook, whereas on LinkedIn, I'm usually the one who reaches out.