I’ve grown a bit tired of Facebook lately. I think it’s because what originally was a torrent of friend additions has gradually slowed to a trickle. (I meet lots of new people through my job but I doubt they want the auditor on their Facebook!)
It seems I’m not the only one who is questioning the system, but for other reasons. The lack of openness is leading some to compare it to AOL.
But despite our misgivings, the beast continues to grow. My city, Toronto, is apparently the “capital of Facebook”:
As a city, we have more members than New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. Thirteen per cent of Torontonians have signed up. We not only have more members than any other city – 670,038 as of this week – we have more groups within the site talking about the goings on of our town.
What does this mean? The value of Facebook to its members increases exponentially as more people join, and for Torontonians, the value of a Facebook account is much higher than it would be for someone from, say, Saskatoon (29,475 members).
I wrote about Facebook before and compared it to LinkedIn. In the post I linked to some accounting-specific Facebook groups, including one I’ll mention again today: Ernst & Young Toronto.
I searched Facebook for groups for Toronto accountants, and the search turned up nothing very good other than the above group. Why are no more accounting firms in Toronto taking advantage of the massive percentage of the population using the site?
Recruiters are taking advantage of the clustering of Toronto accountants, as this screen grab from the Chartered Accountants of Canada group shows.
How long before firms in Toronto realize the recruiting potential of Facebook, as Ernst & Young has?
Don’t forget that the group you’ve linked to is unofficial. I think there are some other unofficial groups at other firms too, but they might be a bit more ‘hidden’.
Part of the reason you see the grassroots group that you link to is because Ernst & Young set up an official group on facebook too, with a regular stream of recruiters popping in to answer students’ questions.
Firms are notoriously conservative. Maybe, as Francine points out (without mentioning this point), their campaign contributions show that they’re the most “liberal” of the big firms?
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=F11
:)
Ah, here’s Francine’s post: http://retheauditors.blogspot.com/2007/07/top-contributors-to-united-states.html
The list above shows that a bunch of the smaller firms also skew more heavily Democratic, so my comment is still valid if you limit it to the Big 4.
Very true, Facebook’s search is a little too ‘tweaked’, a little too often. A recent post on Inside Facebook:
The campaign contributions data is telling, that’s for sure. :)