When Social Networks Cross Boundaries: A Case Study of Workplace Use of Facebook and LinkedIn Meredith M. Skeels Jonathan Grudin Biomedical & Health Informatics, University of Washington Microsoft Research Seattle, WA, USA Redmond, WA, USA [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT to corporate use. One-third of the employees in the enterprise we The use of social networking software by professionals is studied were in the Facebook company network. We found an increasing dramatically. How it is used, whether it enhances or equal number of employees with LinkedIn accounts. Professional- reduces productivity, and how enterprise-friendly design and use oriented LinkedIn had quadrupled in size to over 25 million might evolve are open questions. We examine attitudes and members in one year [12]. What if anything are all these behaviors in a large, technologically-savvy organization through a professional users doing with social networking software? broad survey and thirty focused interviews. We find extensive Enterprise adoption of social networking software is far easier, social and work uses, with complex patterns that differ with and preventing it more difficult, than was true for earlier software system and networker age. Tensions arise when use technologies. This raises questions. Do these sites enhance spans social groups and the organization’s firewall. Although use productivity? Can utility for enterprises be increased? What new is predominantly to support weak ties whose contribution to issues will arise for these new user populations? productivity can be difficult to prove, we anticipate rapid uptake In early 2008, we conducted this research in Microsoft, then an of social networking technology by organizations. organization of 88,000. Although not a typical enterprise, it is Categories and Subject Descriptors typical of the early adopters of email and IM that foreshadowed subsequent wider use. We briefly review social networking H.5.3. Group and Organization Interfaces. software history and research, and then describe our study. General Terms Human Factors, Design BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORK Social Networking Sites Keywords Social interaction was present in early terminal-based computers, Social networking, Facebook, LinkedIn, enterprise. as well as via Usenet and other early Internet software. The modern era of social networking began as Internet performance INTRODUCTION rose and the Web took hold. From 1995 to 1997, ICQ and AOL The use of social networking sites (SNS), which arrived Instant Messenger were released, use of commercial phone-based commercially about a decade ago, has rapidly gained momentum. text messaging ramped up, text messaging web portals emerged, By late 2008, MySpace and Facebook each had 60 million U.S. and Classmates.com and Six Degrees appeared. Messaging users and accounted for 6%-8% of all time spent online [17]. As is brought the buddy lists and frequent, quasi-real-time often true of digital communication technologies, students are communication that are a foundation on which social networking enthusiastic adopters. Whether or not it enhances academic software builds. Mobile phone use and text-messaging also achievement, it is of value to students, for whom social expanded the consumer space, notably to young consumers. networking can vie with studying as their primary occupation. Many newer sites with a social networking component have Enterprise acceptance of a new technology often lags student use. prospered (e.g., Twitter, Flickr, YouTube), but the dominance of As discussed in [13], in the 1990s some researchers still argued older sites suggests that timing was important. From 2002-2004, that organizations would discover that email reduced productivity Cyworld, Friendster, Plaxo, Reunion.com, Hi5, LinkedIn, and remove it. Ten years later, industry analysts made similar MySpace, Orkut, Facebook, and Live Spaces were released or arguments about instant messaging—IM was a way students actively promoted. The six most active US sites at the time of our wasted time and should be avoided by organizations. Now email study were MySpace, Facebook, Classmates, LinkedIn, Live is mission-critical and some managers and executives use IM. Spaces, and Reunion.com. Other sites are reportedly prominent In the past two years, SNS has established a significant presence elsewhere (Cyworld in Korea, Friendster in Asia, Hi5 in Spanish- in enterprises. Facebook, initially restricted to universities, opened speaking countries, Orkut in Brazil and India, QQ in China). Why 2002-2004? Among possible contributing factors were the bursting of the Internet bubble, which gave less ambitious Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for software a chance for the spotlight, and increased online access by personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are youths with IM experience. Early successes such as Friendster not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy then inspired others. otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, The sprawling anarchy of MySpace is youth-oriented. Facebook requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. also began as a youth-oriented website on college campuses. GROUP’09, May 10–13, 2009, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA. Whether or not this was by design, its trajectory made for a Copyright 2009 ACM 978-1-60558-500-0/09/05...$5.00. 95 natural move into enterprises. Facebook student users built did not know the extent or nature of use across the company, or networks of friends poised to start professional careers. The initial the range of attitudes. We invited a random sample of 1000 of the restriction to universities created interest among professionals. In 88,000 in the company address book to take a survey, with a late 2005, employees of some major companies were granted drawing for a music player as an incentive; 430 responded. Facebook access. A year later, it was opened to everyone. In The survey covered demographic information (age, gender, role in contrast, LinkedIn targeted professional use from the start. company), behavior, and attitudes toward SNS. For example, Related Research people were asked their level of agreement or disagreement with the statements “I think social networking software (Facebook, Most SNS research has focused on student use, notably the MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, etc.) can be useful for personal tendency of students to include content that researchers suspect socializing/networking,” and “can be useful for networking within they will come to regret over time [e.g., 15]. Hewitt and Forte [10] Microsoft.” We asked which sites were used, how frequently, and found that two-thirds of the female students surveyed felt that how often they conducted different activities (e.g., inviting people faculty should not be on Facebook at all. to connect, or posting a picture). Survey participants had In a widely cited blog post based on interviews and a subsequent opportunities to provide free text responses describing thoughts on analysis [1, 2], boyd identifies groups of high school students and experiences with social networking software (211 responded) using MySpace or Facebook. She attributes their site preferences and any concerns they had with it (222). We used Atlas.ti and to a complex set of social factors. Her analysis is buttressed by open coding to analyze the free text responses for themes. Hargitai’s [9] survey of college students. When Facebook opened up to high school students, it attracted those who sought to follow We then conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 people. a traditional advanced education trajectory, where social Survey responses were used to select nine interview participants networking provides a career edge as well as being fun. boyd to insure a range of ages, roles and levels in the company, found that MySpace remained the choice of many students who geographic locations, and attitudes (positive and negative) toward were college-bound for more utilitarian purposes—to get the the usefulness of social networking software for work. The other degree while learning something—such as geeks, minority group interview candidates were known to be active users through members, and students living at home. She found that those distribution list activity or referral by other informants. A few shifting to Facebook castigated MySpace as gaudy, cluttered, and were developing prototypes of internal social networking tools. not serious. All but one interview were conducted by both authors, usually in boyd’s observations suggest that, by brilliant plan or fortunate an informant’s office, lasted about an hour, and were recorded happenstance, Facebook increased its allure by initially restricting with permission. Nine geographically distant employees, who access. First it was deployed to elite universities, then other worked in Asia, Europe, South America, and North America, universities. This built interest among high school students, who were interviewed by phone. got it next. Similarly, it was deployed to leading-edge companies Participants were asked to describe their professional background, (e.g., Apple, Microsoft) before wider distribution. prior experience with social networking software, and their IBM’s Social Computing research group is also examining social current use: how, when and why they started using a system, networking software use by professionals.