The Professional Platform Battle

We are at a crossroads. LinkedIn’s earnings for the first quarter of 2013 are through the roof, Facebook is losing users online and faith on Wall Street, Google seems to be doing anything and everything it damn well wants to and the mobile tech world is hungry for the next disruptive technology. There is the social network platform and the professional network platform -- and there is no in between.

Facebook is struggling with this truth and I don’t think it's in their interest to try and evolve. They need to take on communications. FB is a free, worldwide, efficient, effective communication platform. They need to take on telecom and somehow use their unmatched data on us to blow the average phone carrier away. Facebook is like my college and high school digital time capsule, it will be cool to look back on years from now.

The real upside that Google+ and LinkedIn have is that my generation is arriving at a point where we are beginning our professional careers. Both of these platforms have their advantages. Google+ makes collaborating with others on a project unbelievably easy.

You can enter a Google+ hangout and video chat with up to 9 people, work on documents at the same time via Google Drive, and forward and cc Gmail with Google Translate into pretty much any language. Not too bad. Google+ also has the advantage with sharing information because of its “circles” format. You can categorize your contacts making it easier to share your content and also provides a sense of comfort when posting your media.

You know exactly who’s seeing what and I think this concept has so much upside. LinkedIn has its advantage from the international networking and follow up side. You can meet someone, add them on LinkedIn and keep a contact you might never have spoken with again otherwise. LinkedIn also is cool because you get to see what people's passions are. LinkedIn is becoming more than an online resume. It's becoming a place for debate, new ideas to be shared, and you can learn tips and tricks from the people who have made it to top.

It will be very interesting to see how these three companies grow and capitalize on their strengths and see who they partner with to compensate for their weaknesses. On a completely unrelated side note, Twitter is an amazing platform. It is basically the clever and awesome brain of our planet’s population of tech-savvy cavemen. There are also theories that you can leverage Twitter sentiment for stock market analyses... Very cool concept.

Diego Papagiorgio | Elite.