I don't know. It depends on what you do with the idea.

Facebook's apps have been a pretty wide range, many of which are just hooks into other existing communities. Those success stories, like iLike, happen because of a good match between communities and an effective tool to make that connection. You also get meaningless apps like Food Fight and Pets (I will admit to having a Level 18 Bluebit here) that stand by themselves.

LinkedIn isn't inventing the developer app, but neither did Facebook. The success LinkedIn and other social network sites might have by opening up access to their community is the same kind of meaningful connections made possible to other communities. You can certainly m...

I don't know. It depends on what you do with the idea.

Facebook's apps have been a pretty wide range, many of which are just hooks into other existing communities. Those success stories, like iLike, happen because of a good match between communities and an effective tool to make that connection. You also get meaningless apps like Food Fight and Pets (I will admit to having a Level 18 Bluebit here) that stand by themselves.

LinkedIn isn't inventing the developer app, but neither did Facebook. The success LinkedIn and other social network sites might have by opening up access to their community is the same kind of meaningful connections made possible to other communities. You can certainly make career gains through Facebook by communicating with other people, but not to the same degree you should with LinkedIn ... whose entire mission is built around career. I look at the great Firefox plug-in for LinkedIn, which will pull up relevant connections in your network when it detects that you have gone to an employment-related page.

Opening social networking sites may not be the best strategy for everyone, but it also isn't a doomed strategy just because someone did it (and did it well) first.